For eight years, the only reasonable commentary on government policy came from the left. While George W. Bush was president, supporters of the Democratic Party correctly protested the evil war of aggression in Iraq, the abominable use of torture by our military and intelligence agencies, and the sinister aspect of our own government listening to our phone calls, reading our e-mails, and infiltrating our peaceful clubs and organizations as part of the tyrannical War on Terror. Regardless of their motivation, all of these criticisms from the left were valid. The Bush administration, especially while enjoying the support of a Republican majority in Congress, was one of the most damaging administrations to our liberty of any in recent memory.
Of course, these persistent attacks by the Democrats were not really motivated out of a love of liberty. They simply represented a rival gang appealing to the American public’s dissatisfaction with the Bush administration for their own political ends. If anyone doubts this, simply put your ear to the ground and listen for a moment. While the Obama administration marches forward in expanding the War on Terror, fights in court to solidify the government’s right to spy on its own citizens, and has actually confirmed the government’s right to torture under the guise of prohibiting it (as long as said torture is called by another name), all protests from the left against these abominable practices have stopped (kudos to Rachel Maddow and Glen Greenwald who are both notable exceptions).
Since it is apparent that the Democrats are not going to reverse any of these Bush-era incursions against liberty, we can see what President Obama really meant by “change.” While breaking every promise he made to his supporters regarding war, torture, and domestic spying, he has launched an all-out assault on what is left in America of the individual rights to property and free enterprise. His American Recovery and Reinvestment Act handout to existing welfare programs instead of to the “shovel-ready projects” that he claimed the bill would fund, his health care “reform” initiative that will merely attempt to implement programs that have already failed in Europe and Canada, and his destruction of contract law in stiffing secured creditors in the GM bankruptcy are only the beginning.
While all of this might seem gloomy, it should at least represent a political opportunity for the Republicans. Finally, the Republicans have a chance to start making sense and appealing to the natural sense of justice inside each American that was the reason for their political demise in the first place. However, while it might appear on the surface that they are taking advantage of this opportunity, they are not. While railing against what they call Obama’s socialism, they fail to recognize the reason that they will fail in opposing him: their arguments are as collectivist as Obama’s.
Consider their arguments against “Obamacare.” They argue that a government-run program would be inefficient, would eliminate competition through artificially low prices subsidized by tax revenues, and would result in lower quality care and rationing. All of these things are true.
Regarding the government’s takeover of the automobile industry, they argue that the government doesn’t know how to make cars, that forcing the American manufacturers to try to make “greener cars” will only raise their costs and make them less competitive, and that without eliminating the labor union contracts that brought down the American automakers in the first place, they can never compete with foreign automakers, not even those operating in the United States. All of this is true as well.
As just one more example, the Republicans criticize President Obama’s call to expand public works projects, including adding 275,000 jobs under Americorps. They argue that these are not “real jobs,” that once the projects are completed the jobs will go away, and that government cannot create real, sustainable economic growth. Only the private sector can create jobs that last. Again, all true.
While all of these arguments are valid, they are share the same flaw: they are all made based upon what they believe will achieve the best aggregate economic results. Their arguments amount to “the beehive will make more money under our system than theirs.” Like the Democrats, their positions all proceed from the belief that the “needs of society” or the “greater good” outweigh the rights of the individual. If anyone doubts this, then they should take a few moments to read a transcript of John McCain’s acceptance speech upon receiving the Republican nomination for president last year.
The correct argument against all of President Obama’s programs is that they violate the individual rights that government is supposed to protect. Government is an institution of justice, not economics. It exists solely to protect the life, liberty, and property of its constituents. The minute that government attempts to achieve anything beyond this, it must necessarily destroy those rights in the process. As Thomas Jefferson said,
“To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association--'the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”[1]
When government protects life, liberty, and property, enforces the sanctity of contracts, and punishes only violence or fraud, the “free market” that results does produce higher economic productivity and a more equitable distribution of wealth. The beehive does in fact make more honey when the individual rights of the bees are respected. However, when those rights are violated in an attempt to manage the results, the wealth-generating mechanism is destroyed. There is no conflict between individual rights and the needs of society. Securing the rights of every member of society is society’s greatest need.
These are supposed to be the central principles of the Republican Party. Their name itself should be an enormous public relations advantage for them over the Democrats, as our Constitution guarantees us a republican form of government - not a democratic one. Yet what word did we hear from George Bush to describe our nation and its philosophy for all eight years of his presidency? “Democracy.” There is a good reason for that.
Despite their talk about free markets, capitalism, and smaller government, the Republicans have rarely practiced these principles over the past century. The closest they came to fielding a presidential candidate that intended to govern by them was Barry Goldwater, and we the people handed him the most one-sided defeat in American history. After that, Republicans have decided to “talk like libertarians but govern like European social democrats,” as Thomas Dilorenzo so eloquently put it.
After giving the greatest inaugural address of the 20th century (and yes, I am counting John Kennedy’s), Ronald Reagan went on to save Social Security. He had his chance to make a stand and point out that nothing with the word “social” in it was likely to work, besides it being abhorrent to liberty, yet he contradicted everything he said in that wonderful first speech and raised taxes to perpetuate American socialism for another generation. He also ran deficits that exploded the national debt, started the Rex 84 program (the dreaded FEMA camps), and launched the War on Drugs. So much for the “Goldwater Republican.”
George Bush similarly came into office talking about “smaller government,” and “free markets (not to mention his “humble foreign policy”), yet he expanded federal entitlements more than any president since LBJ and cheered on Clinton’s “ownership society,” whereby people who couldn’t afford houses got loans for them anyway because they got to use other people’s money as collateral. Like so many of his Republican predecessors, George Bush’s idea of “free markets” was merely that his friends on Wall Street and in corporate America made as much money as possible, regardless of the fact that they did so because of artificial market conditions created by the Federal Reserve, Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, and the spider web of regulations that are now written by the very corporations that they are supposed to govern. All of these institutions represent government interference with the free market, fundamentally violating property rights and insulating government-favored corporations from competition. If that is “capitalism,” then Stalin and Mussolini were history’s greatest capitalists.
That brings us to newcomer Sarah Palin. Somehow, she seems to have acquired immunity from criticism of her economic policies despite being the most overt Republican socialist alive. As governor, she put a windfall tax on oil companies operating in Alaska and redistributed their profits to Alaskan citizens. She says that the oil in the ground under Alaska belongs to “the people of Alaska,” instead of to those who risk and spend their own capital to drill for it. When Hugo Chavez did that, it was socialism. When a Republican governor did it, it was “standing up to big oil.”
So, the Republicans are out for now and the Democrats are presently in a position of unchecked power. The minute that they gained the advantage, they began proposing monstrous programs that could truly destroy the last vestiges of our republic. As a result, it is tempting for many to think that the Republicans can be “reformed” or “infiltrated.” Perhaps their decisive defeat has “scared them straight” and will force them to adhere to their supposed principles. One might say to oneself, “At least their rhetoric invokes some of our founding principles. If only we could redirect them while they are rudderless, perhaps we could use their political infrastructure to champion liberty.”
The Democrats have never tried to hide what they are about, least of all during this past election cycle. They sold us socialism and they are going to deliver. We may have to learn the hard way how evil and destructive that system is.
On the other hand, the Republicans have continually sold us free markets, smaller government, individual liberty, and then delivered…socialism. One could make a compelling argument that the misconception that capitalism causes the problems in our mixed economy while socialism provides the solutions is due in large part to people mistaking the economic policies of the Republican Party as “capitalism.” It is not. It is corporatism at best, and fascism at worst - if indeed there is a difference between the two. They combine that with at least as much support for the mammoth entitlement programs as the Democrats. Reagan said that FDR was the U.S. president that he admired most. That really says it all.
The prospect of the present Democratic regime left unchallenged should horrify every sane person with any desire at all to live his own life and have any control over his future. For over a century, our conditioned response in times like these has been to run from one gang of thieves to the other. The Republicans are now on deck, warming up with the familiar big government program of military deficit spending, “compassionate conservative” welfarism, and their hypocritical pandering to the “Chrisitan Coalition.” Four years of misery under the Democrats may be just enough to allow 51 percent of Americans to forget how bad the Bush years really were.
What if this time it were different? Instead of doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result, what if we let the Republicans die? They are gasping for air now, without a viable candidate for president and without a prayer of making up ground in the Congress. Their demise would be nothing unprecedented – political parties have come and gone in America for most of our history. The Federalists, the Whigs, the Democratic-Republicans – all of these put presidents into office but eventually went away. The demise of a political party in the United States is long overdue. Imagine if the libertarian wing of the Republican Party abandoned it, making it impossible for them to gain either the White House or a majority in Congress for the foreseeable future? That would spell the beginning of the end of the bipartisan tyranny that we have lived under for the past century.
There is no danger of an indefinite Democratic reign within our government. President Obama and his Democrats are not just going to fail. They are going to fail spectacularly. Hopefully that will be apparent by the next presidential election. If not, then certainly by 2014 or 2016 it will be obvious to the whole world that Obama’s brand of socialism not only should not continue, but cannot continue. Socialism is unsustainable and America has practiced it for far too long. Its inevitable self-destruction is at hand. The present Democratic platform merely steps on the gas pedal as the vehicle approaches the cliff. We are going over the edge sooner than most people think.
When that happens, there is going to be a political backlash against the Democrats that will make the last Republican defeat look like a split decision. What if at that time there was no Republican Party left to bring in more of the same? Imagine the coalition that might be formed to fill that void. Libertarian Republicans, disenfranchised Democrats who truly supported Obama’s anti-war, anti-torture, anti-spying head fake, and all of those independents that presently vote for the “lesser of two evils” could come together. Who knows who else might come out of the woodwork and vote if there truly were something different on the table?
Only when at least one of these criminal gangs is dismembered will there ever be any “change” in Washington. With the Republicans out of the way and the Democrats completely discredited, the chance for a true revolution in Washington couldn’t be better. You may say I’m a dreamer, but life without Republicans should at least be considered. With the taste of Bush and Cheney fresh on our tongues, what do we have to lose?
[1] Jefferson, Thomas Letter to Joseph Milligan April 6, 1816 (regarding Destutt de Tracy‘s Treatise on Political Economy) from The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 14 edited by Albert Ellery Bergh and Andrew A. Lipscomb The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association 1904 pg. 466
Check out Tom Mullen’s new book, A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America. Right Here!
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Sunday, July 19, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Liberty Is An Absolute
"Our legislators are not sufficiently apprised of the rightful limits of their powers; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us. No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another; and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.”
– Thomas Jefferson (1816)[1]
Over the past week I’ve made two round trip flights by air, which means I have had the distinct pleasure of passing through airport security four times in seven days. It may be my imagination, but I believe that our friendly neighborhood TSA officers are getting more authoritarian. While the officer at the podium still exhibits call center courtesy, those charged with seeing that people make their way through the canvass rope maze and show up with their license and boarding pass ready have taken to shouting orders as if managing a chain gang. Of course, this characterization isn’t far from the truth. However, I don’t really blame the officers personally that much. Their job is to get people to act in a completely unnatural manner – partially disrobing in a crowded room full of strangers just for starters – and with the exception of frequent travelers they are never going to do it right.
So, as the days go by and thousands of new travelers shuffle in and forget to have their licenses ready, forget to take their suntan lotion out of their carry on, try to go through the metal detector with their jackets on, and do a thousand other things that innocent people would never think twice about doing, the frustration must build with these foot soldiers in the War on Terror. “I just told you yesterday that you can’t bring liquids through security!” they must think, forgetting that the little old lady they are snarling at is not the same little old lady from yesterday or the day before or the day before that…
However, my sympathy does not go so far as to let me forget what is happening each time I remove my shoes and render my person, papers, and effects insecure against unreasonable searches. Regardless of the chirpy greeting by the uniformed agent with the infrared flashlight or the bizarre signs attempting to characterize this shakedown as some type of customer service (Rather be molested in private? Just ask…), I always remember what is really going on: I am being investigated for a crime.
There is no probable cause, no writs, no warrants sworn by oath or affidavit. In fact, for the 90-year-old gentlemen in front of me who just put his cane through the x-ray machine and is now holding onto the glass wall as he tries to stumble through the metal detector without it, there is no scenario that any reasonable person could imagine where he would or could harm anyone. Yet he is a suspect, too.
Most sane people who observe spectacles like this immediately conclude that law enforcement is going too far. Surely, there must be a better balance than this between liberty and security. However, in thinking this they have already made an error. When it comes to liberty, there can be no balance. Liberty abides no compromise. Liberty is an absolute.
For generations, Americans have been conditioned to believe that there are no absolutes. The truth is always the synthesis of the extremes and compromise is the supreme virtue. These ideas proceed from the “intellectual class” that dominates our education system – a breed that long ago abandoned Reason for the Hegelian confusion that allowed them to embrace communism. It is from this quarter that the spurious arguments against liberty proceed. “Absolute liberty is anarchy” or “you must balance liberty with the needs of society” or Bill Clinton’s infamous “When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it.” All of these arguments are groundless, and those who make them do so because they do not know what liberty is.
Today, what we used to call “liberty” has been given a sterile, quasi-clinical 20th century name. We now call it “the Non-Aggression Principle.” This is by no means an inaccurate name, but hardly as poetic or stirring to the soul as Liberty. While it is useful in making arguments (I do so myself all of the time), I often wonder if this name allows the great majority of people to relegate this most sacred of rights to the small libertarian and objectivist constituencies who champion it. It is much easier to say “there are more important things than the Non-Aggression Principle” than it is to say “there are more important things than Liberty.” However, Liberty and the Non-Aggression Principle are one and the same.
The passage from Jefferson is not meant to suggest that it originated with him or our founders. They got it from Locke, who developed his ideas from ancient sources. As Locke said, men are naturally in “a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature.”[2] The natural right to liberty is absolute within a natural limit: the law of nature. What is this law? The law of nature is Reason, which “teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”[3]
Thus, a state of absolute liberty “is not a state of license.”[4] People exercising their right to liberty do not have an unqualified right to do whatever they wish, regardless of the consequences. There is a clear and unambiguous limit to even what a person in an absolute state of liberty may do. He may do anything that he wishes as long as he does not harm another in aggression, which he absolutely may not do.
Therefore, it is just more politicians talking gibberish when we hear arguments for more or less liberty or balancing liberty with security or other priorities. Liberty does not conflict with any proper functions of government. When there is conflict between government and liberty, it is always government that is in the wrong. Most importantly, as our founding document clearly states and Reason demands, liberty is a right. It is for no one to limit, regulate, or balance with anything. The minute that any limit on human action is put in place beyond “the bounds of the law of nature,” liberty has ceased to exist. One is either free or not free. You cannot enslave someone a little.
Once liberty is properly understood, there are a few conclusions that one can draw about the purpose of government. First, government cannot at the same time secure the right to liberty and prevent crime. The minute that it acts before a crime has been committed, it has destroyed liberty in the process. Since they have committed no aggression, those restrained by the government crime prevention policy should be free to do whatever they choose, but they are not.
In order to preserve liberty, government may only prosecute and punish crimes after they are committed, except in those rare instances when a law enforcement officer happens to be at the scene of a crime as it is taking place. Even military action is something that our founders understood was only justified when a state of war already existed, which I wrote about in more detail in an article last year. That is why they granted Congress the power to declare war. By definition, to declare something presupposes that it already exists.
An understandable first reaction to this idea is that non-aggression must mean that in order to be free we must offer ourselves up as sitting ducks to criminals and foreign armies, only able to take action once the damage has been done. This is refuted by the second conclusion one must draw from an understanding of Liberty: that each individual has not only a right but a responsibility to defend himself. While this may sound frightening at first, it is not. If the truth be told, this is really the only choice that you have whether you live in a free society or not. In all but the rarest of cases, the government simply is not there at the moment that you are attacked. You must defend yourself the best that you can and try to survive. It is only after the fact that the law can come to your aid. This is only one reason that liberty and the right to bear arms are inseparable from one another.
Finally, you must conclude that in addition to destroying your liberty in the process, crime prevention will always fail. A just law is one that prohibits aggression, such as the law against murder. However, once an aggressor has decided to violate this just and natural law, he is certainly not going to be dissuaded by some societal rule of conduct that attempts to prevent him from having the opportunity to commit the real crime. He will simply break that law, too, as so many murderers do when they use “illegal” firearms to commit murder. Only the innocent are punished by attempts to prevent crime. They either follow the unjust law and surrender their liberty or are unjustly punished when they break the law while committing no aggression.
This inevitable failure gives rise to the most ominous aspect of government’s misguided attempt at crime prevention: its equally inevitable expansion. With each new failure, the preventative measures must be increased in intensity to prevent further failure. The actions of all must be more and more limited until all opportunity to commit a crime is eliminated, which even under martial law can never be achieved. So, it is a steady march onward, with a police state as the only logical end. Each new failure in the war on drugs or the war on terror takes us another step down that road.
Life in a state of liberty is not perfect. It makes no guarantees other than the opportunity to pursue your happiness. You may prosper or you may be poor. You may be safe or you may come to harm. Chance will certainly have some effect on your life – we all deal with unexpected circumstances that we cannot control, both good and bad. However, liberty gives you the ability to act upon those things in life that you can control in the way that you believe will be the best for you and those you care about. Without liberty, you can control nothing, and it is only a fool who believes that any government can guarantee that he will never be poor or will never come to any harm. There is only one thing that life without liberty does guarantee: you will never truly be able to pursue your happiness. Robbed of that, why live at all?
© Thomas Mullen 2009
[1] Jefferson, Thomas Letter to Francis Walker Gilmer June 7, 1816
[2] Locke, John Second Treatise of Government Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Indianapolis, IN (1980) Pg. 8
[3] Locke, John Second Treatise of Government Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Indianapolis, IN (1980) Pg. 9
[4] Ibid
Check out Tom Mullen’s new book, A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America. Right Here!
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– Thomas Jefferson (1816)[1]
Over the past week I’ve made two round trip flights by air, which means I have had the distinct pleasure of passing through airport security four times in seven days. It may be my imagination, but I believe that our friendly neighborhood TSA officers are getting more authoritarian. While the officer at the podium still exhibits call center courtesy, those charged with seeing that people make their way through the canvass rope maze and show up with their license and boarding pass ready have taken to shouting orders as if managing a chain gang. Of course, this characterization isn’t far from the truth. However, I don’t really blame the officers personally that much. Their job is to get people to act in a completely unnatural manner – partially disrobing in a crowded room full of strangers just for starters – and with the exception of frequent travelers they are never going to do it right.
So, as the days go by and thousands of new travelers shuffle in and forget to have their licenses ready, forget to take their suntan lotion out of their carry on, try to go through the metal detector with their jackets on, and do a thousand other things that innocent people would never think twice about doing, the frustration must build with these foot soldiers in the War on Terror. “I just told you yesterday that you can’t bring liquids through security!” they must think, forgetting that the little old lady they are snarling at is not the same little old lady from yesterday or the day before or the day before that…
However, my sympathy does not go so far as to let me forget what is happening each time I remove my shoes and render my person, papers, and effects insecure against unreasonable searches. Regardless of the chirpy greeting by the uniformed agent with the infrared flashlight or the bizarre signs attempting to characterize this shakedown as some type of customer service (Rather be molested in private? Just ask…), I always remember what is really going on: I am being investigated for a crime.
There is no probable cause, no writs, no warrants sworn by oath or affidavit. In fact, for the 90-year-old gentlemen in front of me who just put his cane through the x-ray machine and is now holding onto the glass wall as he tries to stumble through the metal detector without it, there is no scenario that any reasonable person could imagine where he would or could harm anyone. Yet he is a suspect, too.
Most sane people who observe spectacles like this immediately conclude that law enforcement is going too far. Surely, there must be a better balance than this between liberty and security. However, in thinking this they have already made an error. When it comes to liberty, there can be no balance. Liberty abides no compromise. Liberty is an absolute.
For generations, Americans have been conditioned to believe that there are no absolutes. The truth is always the synthesis of the extremes and compromise is the supreme virtue. These ideas proceed from the “intellectual class” that dominates our education system – a breed that long ago abandoned Reason for the Hegelian confusion that allowed them to embrace communism. It is from this quarter that the spurious arguments against liberty proceed. “Absolute liberty is anarchy” or “you must balance liberty with the needs of society” or Bill Clinton’s infamous “When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it.” All of these arguments are groundless, and those who make them do so because they do not know what liberty is.
Today, what we used to call “liberty” has been given a sterile, quasi-clinical 20th century name. We now call it “the Non-Aggression Principle.” This is by no means an inaccurate name, but hardly as poetic or stirring to the soul as Liberty. While it is useful in making arguments (I do so myself all of the time), I often wonder if this name allows the great majority of people to relegate this most sacred of rights to the small libertarian and objectivist constituencies who champion it. It is much easier to say “there are more important things than the Non-Aggression Principle” than it is to say “there are more important things than Liberty.” However, Liberty and the Non-Aggression Principle are one and the same.
The passage from Jefferson is not meant to suggest that it originated with him or our founders. They got it from Locke, who developed his ideas from ancient sources. As Locke said, men are naturally in “a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature.”[2] The natural right to liberty is absolute within a natural limit: the law of nature. What is this law? The law of nature is Reason, which “teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”[3]
Thus, a state of absolute liberty “is not a state of license.”[4] People exercising their right to liberty do not have an unqualified right to do whatever they wish, regardless of the consequences. There is a clear and unambiguous limit to even what a person in an absolute state of liberty may do. He may do anything that he wishes as long as he does not harm another in aggression, which he absolutely may not do.
Therefore, it is just more politicians talking gibberish when we hear arguments for more or less liberty or balancing liberty with security or other priorities. Liberty does not conflict with any proper functions of government. When there is conflict between government and liberty, it is always government that is in the wrong. Most importantly, as our founding document clearly states and Reason demands, liberty is a right. It is for no one to limit, regulate, or balance with anything. The minute that any limit on human action is put in place beyond “the bounds of the law of nature,” liberty has ceased to exist. One is either free or not free. You cannot enslave someone a little.
Once liberty is properly understood, there are a few conclusions that one can draw about the purpose of government. First, government cannot at the same time secure the right to liberty and prevent crime. The minute that it acts before a crime has been committed, it has destroyed liberty in the process. Since they have committed no aggression, those restrained by the government crime prevention policy should be free to do whatever they choose, but they are not.
In order to preserve liberty, government may only prosecute and punish crimes after they are committed, except in those rare instances when a law enforcement officer happens to be at the scene of a crime as it is taking place. Even military action is something that our founders understood was only justified when a state of war already existed, which I wrote about in more detail in an article last year. That is why they granted Congress the power to declare war. By definition, to declare something presupposes that it already exists.
An understandable first reaction to this idea is that non-aggression must mean that in order to be free we must offer ourselves up as sitting ducks to criminals and foreign armies, only able to take action once the damage has been done. This is refuted by the second conclusion one must draw from an understanding of Liberty: that each individual has not only a right but a responsibility to defend himself. While this may sound frightening at first, it is not. If the truth be told, this is really the only choice that you have whether you live in a free society or not. In all but the rarest of cases, the government simply is not there at the moment that you are attacked. You must defend yourself the best that you can and try to survive. It is only after the fact that the law can come to your aid. This is only one reason that liberty and the right to bear arms are inseparable from one another.
Finally, you must conclude that in addition to destroying your liberty in the process, crime prevention will always fail. A just law is one that prohibits aggression, such as the law against murder. However, once an aggressor has decided to violate this just and natural law, he is certainly not going to be dissuaded by some societal rule of conduct that attempts to prevent him from having the opportunity to commit the real crime. He will simply break that law, too, as so many murderers do when they use “illegal” firearms to commit murder. Only the innocent are punished by attempts to prevent crime. They either follow the unjust law and surrender their liberty or are unjustly punished when they break the law while committing no aggression.
This inevitable failure gives rise to the most ominous aspect of government’s misguided attempt at crime prevention: its equally inevitable expansion. With each new failure, the preventative measures must be increased in intensity to prevent further failure. The actions of all must be more and more limited until all opportunity to commit a crime is eliminated, which even under martial law can never be achieved. So, it is a steady march onward, with a police state as the only logical end. Each new failure in the war on drugs or the war on terror takes us another step down that road.
Life in a state of liberty is not perfect. It makes no guarantees other than the opportunity to pursue your happiness. You may prosper or you may be poor. You may be safe or you may come to harm. Chance will certainly have some effect on your life – we all deal with unexpected circumstances that we cannot control, both good and bad. However, liberty gives you the ability to act upon those things in life that you can control in the way that you believe will be the best for you and those you care about. Without liberty, you can control nothing, and it is only a fool who believes that any government can guarantee that he will never be poor or will never come to any harm. There is only one thing that life without liberty does guarantee: you will never truly be able to pursue your happiness. Robbed of that, why live at all?
© Thomas Mullen 2009
[1] Jefferson, Thomas Letter to Francis Walker Gilmer June 7, 1816
[2] Locke, John Second Treatise of Government Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Indianapolis, IN (1980) Pg. 8
[3] Locke, John Second Treatise of Government Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Indianapolis, IN (1980) Pg. 9
[4] Ibid
Check out Tom Mullen’s new book, A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America. Right Here!
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