Freedom and Human Achievement E-Book

Jeff Love

• Herausgeber: Defiance Press and Publishing
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

In "Freedom and Human Achievement," Jeff Love delivers a passionate, comprehensive treatise on the philosophical underpinnings of liberty and its essential role in human flourishing. Taking readers on a sweeping historical journey from Ancient Greece through the American founding to our present day, Love demonstrates how periods of human advancement have consistently coincided with eras of greater freedom.

Love argues that freedom is the primary driver of human achievement, examining how political systems that emphasize individual sovereignty produce prosperity, while collectivist ideologies inevitably lead to stagnation and decline. With meticulous attention to constitutional principles, he dissects modern threats to freedom including government expansion, judicial overreach, excessive taxation, and mounting national debt.

Drawing on thinkers from Aristotle and Locke to Jefferson and Madison, "Freedom and Human Achievement" makes a compelling case for limited government and greater personal responsibility. Love doesn't merely diagnose societal problems but offers concrete solutions for restoring America's founding principles, including constitutional amendments, legislative reforms, and civic engagement.

At once a scholarly examination of freedom's philosophical basis and an impassioned call to action, this book will challenge readers to reconsider their understanding of liberty's role in human progress and its fragility in the modern world.

If you enjoyed "The Road to Serfdom" by F.A. Hayek, "Basic Economics" by Thomas Sowell, and "Liberty Defined" by Ron Paul, you'll love "Freedom and Human Achievement."

Leseprobe

Freedom and Human Achievement

Jeff Love

FREEDOM AND HUMAN ACHIEVEMENT

Copyright © 2023 Jeff Love

First Edition: 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This book is a work of non-fiction. The author has made every effort to ensure that the accuracy of the information in this book was correct at the time of the publication. Neither the author nor the publisher nor any other person(s) associated with this book may be held liable for any damages that may result from any of the ideas made by the author in this book.

ISBN-13: 978-1-959677-55-0 (Paperback)ISBN-13: 978-1-959677-56-7 (Hardcover)ISBN-13: 978-1-959677-54-3 (eBook)

Cover: Lady Liberty, with backdrop of the Constitution, lights the way to Freedom while holding a tablet representing the Declaration of Independence. Individuals are scaling Lady Liberty to lift themselves out of darkness.

Published by Defiance Press & Publishing, LLC

Bulk orders of this book may be obtained by contacting Defiance Press & Publishing, LLC. www.defiancepress.com.

Public Relations Dept. – Defiance Press & Publishing, [email protected]

Defiance Press & Publishing, [email protected]

Freedom and Human Achievement is dedicated to all who have sacrificed to preserve the blessings of Freedom we still enjoy to this day.

FOREWORD

I wrote Freedom and Human Achievement out of concern that the basic concepts of Freedom and Liberty were under insidious attack through failure to teach their meaning. The flourishing of humanity that they bring were no longer being taught to future generations.

Equally alarming was the cancerous tentacles of Marxism, Socialism and Progressivism that were gaining acceptance on college campuses. Once again fostered by the privileged elite and repackaged as Progressive Democratic Socialism, a supposedly “new and better” way to govern was taught while completely ignoring all of the death, chaos, and destruction these ideas inflicted on humanity in the last century. It is an unambiguous, observable fact that an “elite ruling class” has used manipulation of Government to subjugate the rest of humanity for most of written history.

Freedom and Human Achievement is a comprehensive treatise on Freedom. It shows why humanity flourishes when Free and languishes when oppressed and shows that almost all of the progress of humanity has occurred in the brief moments of history when man has been free from his own Government.

If we fail to pass these ideas on to future generations, humanity could enter a modern-day Dark Age, with today’s technology used to subjugate The People.

The manuscript was completed but not published more than ten years ago. It did not conform to the globalism mantra of the day. Freedom and Human Achievement highlights contemporary threats and makes predictions. Instead of updating to current-day conditions and statistics, I am publishing it as originally completed. This gives you the unique perspective to view my predictions with the benefit of contemporary knowledge.

Here are some of the topics:

Tolerance

Crime

Debt

Cancel Culture

Militarization of Police

Growth of Government

Divisiveness

Gun Control

Socialism

Individualism

Marxism

Anti-Capitalism

Table of Contents

FOREWORD

Part I. What is Freedom?

CHAPTER 1: THE TENETS OF FREEDOM

CHAPTER 2: FREEDOM FROM GOVERNMENT

CHAPTER 3: THE RIGHT TO ACHIEVE AND THE COLLECTIVE USE OF PRODUCTIVITY

CHAPTER 4: DIVERSITY: INDIVIDUALISM VS. COLLECTIVISM

CHAPTER 5: THE RISE AND FALL OF FREEDOM

CHAPTER 6: THE DYNAMICS OF CHANGE IN SOCIETY

Part II. The History of Freedom

CHAPTER 7: ANCIENT GREECE AND THE POWER OF THE INDIVIDUAL

CHAPTER 8: NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI

CHAPTER 9: THE ENLIGHTENMENT

CHAPTER 10: FREEDOM AND THE FOUNDING OF AMERICA

CHAPTER 11: FLIRTING WITH THE EDGE OF DARKNESS

CHAPTER 12: LUDWIG VON MISES AND THE AUSTRIAN SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

Part III. Problems in Contemporary Freedom

CHAPTER 13: THE RULE OF LAW

CHAPTER 14: THE SUPREME COURT

CHAPTER 15: THE POWER OF SLOP

CHAPTER 16: DEBT

CHAPTER 17: JOBS AND PRODUCTIVITY

CHAPTER 18: TAXATION

CHAPTER 19: GUN CONTROL

CHAPTER 20: CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

CHAPTER 21: SIEGE MENTALITY

Part IV. Rebuilding American Freedom

CHAPTER 22: A PROGRAM FOR FREEDOM

CHAPTER 23: THE FREEDOM MANIFESTO

Part I. What is Freedom?

CHAPTER 1: THE TENETS OF FREEDOM

This is a book about Freedom, with a capital F. It is based on the premise that Freedom is, as Thomas Jefferson proposed, a natural, self-evident right of all human beings.1 We will not delve into abstruse or arcane notions of psychological Freedom. I understand the sense in which it may be said that Solzhenitsyn, starving in his Gulag cell, was the freest man in Russia, but when, in the pages that follow, the word Freedom is used, it refers to political, social, and economic Freedom—Freedom from oppressive Government most of all.

It is also my purpose to show that to the extent The People of a given nation are Free, they will achieve great things. They will live happier, more comfortable and more productive lives, and that productivity will have consequences not only for the individual responsible for it, but for others as well, and in the long run, for all humanity. A Free society is dynamic, ever-changing, moving inexorably, although surely not in a straight line, along a path which can accurately be called progress. By contrast, an oppressive society seeks stasis to define, determine, and lock into place those things which will be allowed and/or allotted. And it decides which people are promoted as beneficiaries of its munificence or punished through its disapproval, with the oppressors secure in their privileged positions of power. This is true whether the leaders of such a society are elitists, kings, or commissars.

Thus Freedom, a good thing in and of itself, is also to be sought on utilitarian grounds. Freedom is good because it leads to human achievement.

Historically, Freedom has been a scarce commodity, but we will see that a vastly disproportional share of human achievement is associated with Freedom. We will investigate the long and tumultuous journey of Freedom from its ascendency in ancient Greece to how it is faring in the early twenty-first century. At times the path has been arduous and difficult, even to the point of hopelessness, as in the Dark Ages. At times it has been breathtakingly dynamic, as in the Enlightenment and American Revolution. But at all times it has affected the achievement and well-being of The People depending on its success or oppression.

The American Revolution, and the great documents it produced, initiated an unprecedented level of human achievement that is threatened today as at no other time since its inception. Attack from an aggressor needs no recognition as a threat and will rapidly galvanize almost universal support of The People. However, allowing the philosophical principles that underpin Freedom to gradually be eroded away and discarded is a more insidious threat. Appealing to the greed of those who would live at the expense of their neighbors, assurances that Government will keep us secure and take care of us, distortion of meaning of the words “rights” and “equality,” assertion that the Constitution is a “living document” and re-institution of class warfare are some of the tactics being used by political elitists to once again subjugate those who still live with some degree of Liberty. The extent to which the meaning of Freedom can be distorted or blurred makes it more difficult to defend.

In its modern guise, this withering of the Freedom doctrine has taken the form of a collectivism based to some extent on Marxist thinking, but more recently devolving from the economic ideas of John Maynard Keynes, in which individual Freedom is sacrificed in favor of a large, professional bureaucratic state utilizing centralized planning in an attempt to “rationalize” the inevitable rough edges and inconsistencies of Freedom-based societies, and move toward a more bland egalitarianism.

Is it inevitable that decline must follow ascendency once Freedom-driven nations achieve prominence? Many historians certainly believe so because of the classical experience, which they believe to be analogous to the modern American case. In this view, America is seen as being on the brink of repeating the period of decline that has been the fate of every previous country which has risen to the pinnacle of world power.

When observing some of the common threads and societal factors that have preceded the denouement of other great states, a strong case can be made that America has started initiating many of the same policies that have led to the failure of preeminent nations in the past and is sliding downhill toward the precipice of financial ruin at a rapidly accelerating pace. The questions are not whether the threat is real or whether America is foundering; this book will demonstrate the case for both postulates. The crucial questions are why we are in decline, whether the outcome is now inevitable, and if not, what can be done to reverse the gathering momentum toward collapse so that America can once again reassert its role of Freedom-based leadership in tolerance, prosperity and achievement for all The People.

America has long been the worldwide leader in innovation and development of (among other things) new technology, supported by an educational system that was once among the best in the world. But in the last quarter of the twentieth century, our public educational system has been in decline. We recently learned that in the 2010 testing against thirty-four OECD countries (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) around the world, America’s fifteen-year-olds scored fourteenth in reading skills, seventeenth, in science and below-average twenty-fifth in mathematics. If much of our way of life is already teetering on the brink of decline, what does this lack of competitive education portend for our grandchildren’s future?

One decade into the twenty-first century, America is suffering arguably the greatest downturn in our economy since the Great Depression, compounded by the fact that America is now the greatest debtor nation in the world. The media reports unemployment at hovering around 9 percent, but the method of Government reporting often distorts the true picture and under reports the problem. Those who have become discouraged and who are no longer looking for work are designated as “marginally attached to the workforce” and are not reported in the unemployment statistics; nor are those with only part-time jobs—many of whom need full time work just to feed their families. The precise number may be unknowable, but at least one recent university study pegs “true” unemployment at more than 30 percent.2 The most accurate calculation would probably be in between, but the number is not as important as the fact we know unemployment is bad, and we all know families who are affected. In the midst of this crisis, our Federal Government has gone on a binge of spending and debt creation that is unprecedented in the history of our country and perhaps the world. Against the protests of The People, our politicians have created a new health care entitlement program that will most certainly dwarf all existing entitlement programs, which are currently bankrupting the nation. Only a very limited portion of the new health care program, passed in 2010, has taken effect at the time of this writing, and there are various legislative and judicial attempts to curtail various components of it, or the entire program. It is therefore impossible at this time to say how great a financial burden the program will place on the nation. While many of the upper class and elite are unaffected and oblivious to the problem, Government is intruding into the daily lives of mainstream Americans as never before. Whether because they sincerely support such intrusion into Free decision-making by The People, or simply because they feel they must justify their existence, bureaucrats are engaging in micromanagement of the economy right down to mandating unworkable toilets and even the type of politically correct light bulbs that can be used. The collateral damage to jobs, the economy, and the environment can be seen as clearly as if one had a good light bulb to shine on it, as the last company in America to manufacture light bulbs fires its workers and shuts it doors—out of business as a direct consequence of Government fiat. And the new foreign light bulbs we are forced to purchase are filled with deadly toxic chemicals that are an unintended consequence.

Thousands of new regulations are also being created each year, and they are stifling the growth and profitability of businesses. This has resulted in a mass exodus of jobs to overseas countries with fewer regulations and lower taxes. Those companies which either must remain in America or who choose to remain are put at a serious competitive disadvantage, which restricts their ability to grow, prosper, and create jobs.

We have not learned from the abject failure of Marxist class warfare that was so destructive in the twentieth century. Some leaders are still working to increase their own power and influence by dividing society into respective interest groups, rather than working toward unity and resolution of our problems. By joining the divisiveness, many seem to be abandoning the heritage of tolerance that is crucial in our multi- cultural society.

We can see that the middle class is shrinking dramatically in size, and the disparity between rich and poor is growing at an alarming rate. If this trend continues, America could end up as just another “banana republic,” with elitist landowners, high corporate and Government officials controlling most of the wealth, no more than a nominal middle class, and a vast majority of downtrodden poor living in conditions that resemble the serfdom of Medieval Europe. How can America be losing one of its greatest historical achievements — its middle class?

Many Americans can see this early decline and know that we are on the wrong path but are unable to pinpoint the causes of the breakdown or to articulate those things which need fixing. The problems have grown to such magnitude that they seem insurmountable and beyond our grasp. There is a feeling of impotence to effect meaningful change. We seem to have lost something important that has made us vibrant and that has allowed us to flourish.

This book is going to demonstrate why we are foundering today by presenting a historical perspective of what worked to make America great, but more importantly why it worked, and why America is now on the precipice of decline, and what we must do to restore the vitality that led us to greatness. We are abandoning the principles which our forefathers used to reshape the world, and which promote abundance and well-being.

The American experiment in Government, which began just a bit more than 200 years ago, caused an unprecedented flourishing of humanity because Freedom is more than just a word. Freedom is the driving force of human achievement.

THE CONCEPT OF FREEDOM

The philosophical case for Freedom derives from the proposition that each individual is endowed with natural and inalienable rights that are universally held and not contingent on laws, customs, or beliefs. Individuals alone hold these rights, which are called “natural” because they derive from the very nature of what it means to be human. They do not adhere to groups of individuals, as groups. Phrases such as “women’s rights,” or “gay rights,” or “minority rights” may be used correctly and usefully when by them is meant that individuals who fall under these classifications enjoy the same rights as all other persons; but they are oxymoronic and inaccurate when they are used to define special “rights” peculiar to the classification.

Rights imply that each individual is sovereign to make the widest possible latitude of choices affecting his well-being so long as he is not thereby personally infringing on the rights of others. Incontrovertibly holding natural and inalienable rights insures “Freedom from” one’s own Government, or any other entity or authority.

Rights may not be taken away by Government force, coercion or subversion. You may object to this. Government takes away rights all the time, you may say, and you may accuse me of inconsistency, since I complained just a few paragraphs ago that the Government was depriving me of my right to buy the light bulb of my choice. The distinction is this: no matter what the Government does, the right remains. That is the difference between rights and Liberty. Government has taken away my Liberty by failing to protect my inalienable right (Freedom). In the Declaration of Independence,

Thomas Jefferson made this point clearly. “To secure these rights,” Jefferson wrote immediately after his famous reference to the rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, “Governments are instituted…”

Natural and unalienable rights exist. They are not created by the Government.

The Government’s job is to make the rights secure by guaranteeing The People the Freedom to exercise them. And if Government fails to do so, Jefferson adds an additional right: In such a case, he says, “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.”

Following on the Declaration by a decade and a half, the Constitution was a brilliant attempt to secure the rights of The People by limiting the power of the Government it created to abridge or contravene those rights. It recognizes and refines Jefferson’s short list of natural rights, and in the Bill of Rights—ten Amendments which were part of the Constitution from the beginning, expressly prohibit the Government from interfering with these rights. Since Government has always been the greatest traducer of rights, these prohibitions represent a giant step toward securing them for The People. The Bill of Rights even goes so far as to state that, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”3 Some of the rights which are specifically enumerated include the rights of free assembly, association, keeping and bearing arms, the press4, religion (no matter how strange, so long as it does not infringe on the rights of others, such as perhaps by justifying human sacrifice), free speech, and several important rights involving jurisprudence, including the right of a speedy trial, trial by jury, non-self-incrimination and others.

Among the rights not specifically enumerated, but in the view of the author clearly among those retained by The People, and which we will discuss in due course in this book are the rights of personal choice, sovereign death, movement, privacy, property, thought, sovereignty over one’s life and body, and the right to be left alone. In addition, there are rights to be free from unrestrained Government and excessive taxation, and another which we will highlight at some extent because of its timeliness and importance: the right to be born free from debt. Some of these rights are relatively noncontroversial. Others are the subject of bitter debate. A few will be challenged by readers who believe themselves to be strong proponents of Freedom. I welcome and encourage a vigorous debate for having a clear understanding of our individual rights is essential if America is to recapture, maintain, and extend its exceptional position as the greatest exponent of Freedom—and therefore of human achievement—in the history of the world.

1. Jefferson used the word liberty in the Declaration of Independence. In the historical past, some used Liberty and Freedom to be synonymous, the former being derived from French and the latter from German. I take Freedom as denoting “rights” which create a condition of opportunity and which cannot be taken away; Liberty denotes the condition or ability to act on those rights. For example, Government may forcibly deny my Liberty to enjoy Freedom, but the fundamental rights embodied in Freedom are inalienable.

2. http://sfcmac.wordpress.com/2010/09/17/youngstown-state-university-study-americas-true-jobless-rate-at-30-5/

3. This is, in its entirety, the Ninth Amendment.

4. This right is often misconstrued to suggest a special class of people, journalists, or “the press.” That is not the meaning of the right at all. As with all other rights, “freedom of the press” means simply that all people have the right to state their views on any subject whatsoever on paper and to make and distribute copies of what they write.

The editorial board of the New York Times has no greater “Freedom of the press” than you do. A natural extension of this right is that it applies also to radio, television, the Internet and other modes of dissemination that do not involve an actual printing press.

CHAPTER 2: FREEDOM FROM GOVERNMENT

“The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.”

– Thomas Jefferson

Freedom has been a rare and precious reality enjoyed by only a small segment of mankind. Even today, a majority of the world’s population lives under the yoke of oppression. For most, there is no cultural heritage of Freedom. For as far back as they can trace their ancestry, few or none of the generations have known even the most basic of Freedoms. And sadly, there has been little hope for bettering their lives for themselves and their descendants, no matter how industrious or hard working they prove themselves, no matter how bright and intelligent they are, and no matter how hard they apply themselves.

If we examine those few times and places in which the degree of Freedom has risen above the norm, we find that they have produced the greatest leaps forward in almost all fields of human endeavor. The bulk of progress has occurred in those societies which adopted more of the tenets of Freedom, and the well-being and flourishing of humanity have been more or less proportional to the degree of Freedom and Liberty realized by The People. Unfortunately, the reality of most times in most places is that the elite few use the force of Government to confiscate and plunder the wealth created by those who produce.

Since the formation of the State, the greatest oppressor of mankind has always been his own Government. Because Government constitutes the exercise of authoritative power over The People, it has provided a means of dominance by the powerful who manipulate society for personal gain. When one country conquers another, one of its first acts will almost always be to establish a “puppet” Government in the vanquished country, as the primary tool of exerting its dominance and authority over The People living there, and to skim the country’s productive capacity on behalf of the conquerors.

The local puppets thus serve the conqueror in order to preserve or establish their own wealth and status. The puppets may be the same elite that was in control before they were conquered. Think of King Herod, for example, or a new favored class, such as the Nazi Party of Czechoslovakia following the Munich capitulation to Hitler. Either way, the local leaders must now kowtow to the new masters.

Similarly, when a coup, revolution or civil war brings new native leadership to power in a given country, the almost universal result is that an old group of oppressors—the Russian czars, say—are replaced by a new one—the Bolshevik commissars. Only one country stands apart, in that for the bulk of its existence The People have escaped the shackles, oppression and elitism that have long dominated the rest of the world, and that is the United States of America.

Those who wish to control the lives and thinking of mankind will tell you that Freedom means Freedom To … History and reason teach us exactly the opposite.

Real Freedom means Freedom From … The Forefathers of the American Revolution recognized that first, foremost, and above all else, Freedom means freedom from Government. This is one of the primary cornerstones upon which all other tenets of Freedom must be built.

Unfortunately, most Americans today do not even realize that our Forefathers viewed Government as a significant threat to Freedom, and that the Constitution’s stated purpose of establishing justice, ensuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of Liberty, was fulfilled in their plan by restricting the activities of the Government, not by expanding them. Modern Americans have nonetheless been taught in public schools to view Government as a benevolent benefactor, an iconic Uncle Sam cartoon character whose purpose is to solve all humanity’s problems, and who therefore must be given ever more authority to do so. Many Americans thus believe that almost any problem should be referred to the Government for solution. Some believe Government should take care of The People from cradle to grave with no concern about where the resources to do so will originate. And they do not understand that the trade-off for bigger Government is always less Freedom for The People, and less Freedom brings about a decline in the overall standard of living and advancement in all fields of endeavor, with the possible exception of warfare.

The lesson is a hard one to learn, and sadly seems often to be learnable only the hard way. Survivors of the inhumane oppression of many of the now defunct communist regimes have no illusions about the evils of unrestrained Government, and are some of the most committed and passionate believers in Freedom today.

Unfortunately, only a few of the former Soviet republics and satellite countries were able to install Freedom-based governments following the communist overthrow, now more than twenty years ago. From Kazakhstan to Belarus, and in Russia itself, Freedom is still an unfulfilled dream.

Occasionally, a stark moment drives home the point in an unforgettable way. The now iconic images of a single student standing in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989 were a rebuke to the oppressors of the world’s most populous nation, and in a way to the rest of the world for not caring as much about Freedom as he did. Oppressed people do indeed yearn to breathe free, but those who enjoy Liberty often fail to understand how precious it is.

The People of Iran, with many murdered in the streets while protesting the rigged presidential election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009—which preserved the power of his regime and the radical Muslim elite behind it—have first-hand experience with the oppression of Government. Hundreds of thousands of innocent political prisoners suffer almost unimaginable tortures daily in the concentration camps of Kim il-Jung’s North Korean prison-nation, and those privileged to live outside the barbed wire are better off only by comparison, dependent on food aid from abroad, though they live in a fertile land more than capable of feeding all of them and many more.

Nor need we go very far back in history to remember the stacks of morbid skulls from Pol Pot’s late 1970s regime in Cambodia, and its contemporary, Idi Amin’s murderous tenure in Uganda. These examples, not to mention Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s USSR and many others, demonstrate that any country on any continent is vulnerable to a potential reign of terror, now as much as ever. It has been estimated by every observer who, to my knowledge, has attempted the task that more of The People have been killed by their own Governments in peacetime than in all the wars of history, and there can be no more valid adage than the famous statement that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.5 It is somewhat of a paradox that even with the obvious truths from both history and current events confronting them, many who now enjoy some measure of Freedom refuse to accept the premise that their own Government might become their oppressor. It is apparent that human beings want to believe in their own Government, ignoring the State’s predilection to usurp Freedom and Liberty from The People.

Since the phenomenal success of using cutting-edge mass communication for Government propaganda by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s, The People have been subjected to a barrage of indoctrination promoting the interests of the State by almost every country in the world. The expenditures have been one sided, as no other entity has had the resources or continuity to match the decades-long advertising blitz. This effort has often been fomented by collectivists, determined to promote a move toward worldwide socialism. The breadth of the campaign to sell Statism has been extraordinary, from children’s television programming suppressing ideas of individualism adult appeals for more welfare constituents and even entertainment programs venerating not only bureaucrats themselves, but also lawyers, journalists and other favored groups.

Freedom To and Freedom From

The struggle for Freedom can be pared back to the differences between the two concepts, Freedom To and Freedom From. The difference I suggest with these categories is the difference between those who support the primacy of Government and those who believe in the sovereignty of The People. Freedom To implies that rights are reposed with the “other” (Government) which then grants privileges to the governed. Freedom From is a clear statement of the inherent rights of The People, which are to be protected, or “secured,” to use Jefferson’s word, against usurpation by the State. The basic conflict is between those who believe all rights arise out of Government and those who believe all rights arise from The People. The struggle is not new, but extends back into antiquity and the well-being of The People has been, and is directly affected by the prevailing side.

Freedom To

Those who believe in Statism believe that all rights arise out of Government, and the State must grant rights and privileges to The People. Government must grant you the Freedom To pursue almost any activity, or you face punishment for doing so without permission. The form of Government is relatively unimportant in this regard. Old-style absolute Monarchies were expressly based on the assumption that the King ruled by Divine right, and that he and he alone was the ultimate owner of all the wealth of the realm, from which, according to his concept of his best interest, he doled out in some measure to his subjects, great or small. Ideological Dictatorships in our own times viewed the situation in the same light, except, at least in the case of the Communists, that they denied any of it was in any way Divine. But modern Social Democracies, the prevailing form of Government in Europe and elsewhere (and for that matter the twenty-first century USA too, except that we reject the terminology) also make the assumption that all rights and privileges belong to the Government in the first place, and only through their agency are granted to anyone else, most assuredly to The People. Regardless of its form, those who support the omnipotence of Government believe order is maintained through the use of force, fear, and intimidation. Those who believe in Government control of our lives believe that The People are incapable of governing themselves.

Since the individual has no rights (all rights are reposed in Government), “right” decisions are made by Government and enforced through formalistic laws, and application of force, fear, and intimidation over The People.

It is inherent in the nature of Government to oppress The People. This tendency arises from Government’s role as enforcer through the licensed (legalized) exercise of power, because of the collective nature of its function, and most of all because collective power and control are converse to, and therefore antagonistic to, the rights and sovereignty of the individual. Where people’s natural rights have been secured by a Government, such as in the early USA, or simply by tradition, it will be the inevitable nature of Government to take them away whenever the opportunity to do so presents itself. In 1779, Thomas Jefferson said, “Experience [has] shown that, even under the best forms [of government], those entrusted with power have, in time and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”

It is also inherent in the nature of Government to concentrate power and to centralize authority as a means of exerting its dominance and increasing its control. The degree of bureaucracy is proportional to the degree of centralization and to the size of Government; that is to say increased bureaucracy is a natural outcome of increased growth in the size of Government. There is also a corollary relationship between size of bureaucracy and degree of corruption, which arises out of the exercise of power and extends itself throughout the system until it becomes pervasive, extending to even the lowest levels. In some countries, these principles have existed for so long they have not only become accepted, but have become an institutionalized way of life.

I was once involved in helping set up an office in a foreign country long dominated by the rule of big Government and its correlatively attending bureaucracy. After we had rented the office space we needed, we were shocked to learn it was going to take a minimum of six months to get approval from all of the necessary ministries and agencies to open the office. Of course, this was never mentioned when we were leasing the property. In frustration, we hired a local associate agent of Government (in other words, a lawyer) to guide us through the maze. We then spent two days meeting low level bureaucrats in no less than eleven offices to each of whom we paid small bribes and received stamps of approval (literally) on sheaves of official looking documents. At ten of the stops6 we also had to pay a small bribe to the policeman assigned to the block where we parked to guard our car and prevent it from being defaced by local ruffians. I later learned this was a street cop’s primary source of income since the job paid so little, and the real risk was that if you did not pay the bribe, the protector might himself instigate the vandalism. In the end, and with all of the necessary stamps of approval, we were able to open the office in three days instead of the “customary” six months. The bureaucracy and corruption had become so entrenched as to become the normal and expected way of doing business. We were left with little doubt that the lawyer, the eleven bureaucrats and the ten policemen were pleased to have us operating in their local areas of control.

It makes a great deal of difference whether a given activity is a natural right of The People or merely a privilege granted by Government. For one thing, any privilege granted by Government can also be taken away by that same Government, or any subsequent successor to it. But no Government can legitimately deprive The People of their natural, inherent rights because these are endowed, as the Declaration of Independence says, by the Creator, and thus both preexist and transcend any and all Governments. To be sure, Governments can effectively deny The People their rights, by use of force, but the Declaration has a remedy for that, too. “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.” it says, and the fact that The People of the American colonies, in spite of the odds, did exactly that means the Right to “alter or abolish” is not a hollow phrase, but a legitimate alternative for any citizenry willing to pledge its “lives, fortunes and sacred honor” to the cause. Indeed, in our own time, the collapse of Communism demonstrated again the power of The People to alter and abolish tyranny. And The People in many of the long oppressed Arab countries are currently beginning to protest in the attempt to secure their own Freedom.

But first The People must learn to care enough for their Freedom to take action. In America today, the battle to restore Freedom does not (Yet?) require standing in front of tanks or facing Valley Forge-like suffering. Great strides can be made simply through concerted political action. In order for that to happen, however, people must understand what is at stake, and as long as most people define the basic precepts of Freedom as “to go anywhere I want,” or “to do whatever I want,” they are unlikely to look past the narrow self-interest of receiving one’s share of the goodies Uncle Sam the Benevolent Benefactor can hand out. The difference between a true understanding of Rights and a superficial settling for privileges is the difference between individual sovereignty or Government sovereignty over one’s life.

Jefferson’s Horse

Let’s look at an example. Freedom To implies that the State grants The People the privilege to drive. It sets up an entire regulatory bureaucracy, including complex taxation, around this most basic of modern human needs.

Isn’t the ability to drive just as important to The People today as riding a horse was two centuries ago? Do you believe that Thomas Jefferson would passively agree that his right to ride his horse was in fact a privilege granted to him by the State? And would he be willing to be taxed, identified, and licensed for that privilege? Remember, the whole revolution started when the British Parliament decided to impose a rather modest tax on tea.

Neither Jefferson, nor any other American of his day would tolerate a Government that required him to pay a tax in order to receive a license to ride his horse from his home to town. Nor would he countenance a tax on his purchase of the horse itself, or a luxury tax if it happened to be a particularly fine horse. He would most surely revolt if the horse had been further taxed and inspected each year for worthiness to ride, or if he had been forced to pay federal, state, and county taxes to use the public throughways, roads, and bridges. All those taxes are imposed on us today, and to continue the comparison, in Virginia and most other states, Jefferson would have paid an annual tax on the value of the animal as real property, not to mention paying Federal and State taxes on the grain and hay the horse used as fuel.

And we’re not through yet. Many accidents, injuries and deaths did and do happen in the course of equine activity, so no doubt, if our present Government’s safety rules were applied to his time, Jefferson’s horse would have to be ridden at a federally mandated speed, and equipped with a federally mandated saddle and a federally mandated seat belt, in case someone fell off. Then too, riding a horse more resembles operating a motorcycle than an automobile, so the law would also probably require the author of the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom, in which he spoke of the “impious presumption of legislators,” to stuff a federally approved crash helmet over his famous reddish locks.

What would Thomas Jefferson say about all this? We can get a pretty good idea from a letter he wrote to Thomas Cooper in 1802, in which he predicted future happiness for Americans “if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” In a letter to James Madison on January 30, 1787, Jefferson also said, “I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.” Faced with the tax reach of today’s bureaucracy, it is interesting to wonder if Jefferson, were he alive today, might believe it is time for a “little rebellion.” Regardless, I am completely convinced that he and virtually all the other founders of the republic would believe Liberty is in serious jeopardy in today’s America.

In a particularly ominous recent development, Government has begun using its power to control the rules of the road as a form of coercion, punishment and oppression. Government is now taking away the driving privileges of law breakers, even for some infractions that have nothing to do with driving. Because it is only in its fledgling stages, this new found use of law seems innocuous to many, but the fledgling stage is also the precedent-setting stage, and the Government’s actions surely contain the potential for abuse and increased control. For most Americans, driving is integrally connected to our most basic needs and pursuit of happiness. If a person cannot drive, his ability to earn a living is severely hampered; his right of free association is curtailed; and in the modern world even his ability to find food and clothing is made precarious.

Thus The People’s right to unrestricted Freedom of movement is jeopardized by Government’s relegation of driving to a mere privilege instead of a fundamental right, because Government can control, restrict, or even deny a privilege for all sorts of reasons, including “compliance.” Under current legal precedents now being set and reinforced, if you do not comply with various dictates of Government, it could result in your losing your driving privilege. Once this precedent is recognized by the courts, it can be applied to enforce almost any edict. If, after all, driving is a privilege, one who is late paying some tax or other, violating a trash recycling regulation, smoking a marijuana cigarette (or in the not-too-distant future, perhaps any cigarette), being late with an alimony payment, or any other shortcoming which, however serious or trivial, has no business being linked to something as fundamental as the right to drive an automobile. Non-compliance is an all-encompassing and very slippery slope.

However, if driving is a right rather than a privilege, The People are secure in their mobility. While the distinction may seem subtle to some, the distinction between rights and privileges, when reduced to legal practice, can mean the difference between Liberty and oppression.

This example should serve to remind us that the battle between Freedom From and Freedom To, and the distinction between rights and privileges, are part and parcel of the battle for Freedom and Liberty. Unfortunately, this is only one minor example: The onslaught is pervasive throughout Government.

Freedom From

The Forefathers of America recognized and tried to prevent the tendency of Government to gradually usurp power. As they promulgated a new form of Government, they drew from the experiences of the past, and attempted as best they could to place obstacles to the growth of Government power. James Madison said, “There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by the gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpation.”7

Our Forefathers believed in a new order. They were not anarchists; they understood that to secure the Rights of The People, governments are instituted, and that in order to form a more perfect union, a rational plan of operations was essential. But they had no illusions that the State and The People would be in perpetual conflict over the issue of sovereignty. To resolve this conflict in favor of Freedom and Liberty, they added to the checks and balances of the Constitution the further protection of a Bill of Rights to expressly limit the powers of Government. Their intent was clear. As stated by Patrick Henry, “The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government—lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.”

They believed Rights belong to The People, that The People may grant Rights to Government, and that all Rights not specifically so granted are retained by The People. They declared that all mankind is endowed with inalienable Rights upon which Government may not tread. They believed that specifically enumerating the powers granted by The People to Government was a primary means of preserving Freedom and Liberty. In a letter to George Washington in 1791, Thomas Jefferson commented specifically on this point when he cited the language of the Tenth Amendment, ”The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people,” and added, “To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.”

Our Forefathers believed in individual sovereignty—that the individual, and not the Government, should make the choices which affect his life. They would defend the right of the individual to make petty or unwise decisions of his own behalf for they understood that once Government begins to “protect” the individual from his own choices, it will continue to justify the usurpation of powers until only the privileged class and the powerful elite enjoy any measure of real Freedom.

Perhaps the most profound statement by any of the founders on the nature of Government was that stated by Thomas Paine in Common Sense:

“Some writers [he wrote] have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions.

“The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

“Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.

“Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other law-giver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him, out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.”

This is the description of Government that ought to be taught in every classroom in the country, but I doubt it is the one you, or anyone else, has been taught for a very, very long time. Instead, you probably learned that Government is a benevolent benefactor that will protect and take care of its citizens, particularly the weak and needy. It finds, codifies, and doles out Rights in the form of Freedom To statements when it suits its purpose and takes them away when it does not.

The evil seen in Government by our Forefathers knows only the bounds of its restriction, and it exists in a constant state of attempting to subvert those restrictions and assume complete and unlimited power. The whole of history, and especially the past 200 years, only serves to prove and strengthen the concepts of Paine, Jefferson, Madison, and the rest.

Government held at least the latent power to dominate every facet of life from the end of the Athenian democracy to the coming of the Enlightenment. In feudal Europe, the King owned all property, and every subject was subject to his will and whims. In early modern times, the Divine Right of Kings to rule without regard to the wishes of The People was promulgated. And even when the age of revolution broke out beginning in the late eighteenth century, the results often merely replaced one harsh regime with another. The French Revolution brought on a reign of terror, a stifling bureaucracy, a military dictatorship under Napoleon and an eventual return to monarchy under the Bourbon Restoration. The various Latin American revolutions quickly devolved into bloody attempts by the new leadership to repress The People and to preserve their newfound power. And by the dawn of the twentieth century, the collectivist “isms” —Nazism, Fascism, Totalitarianism, Socialism and Communism—had reaffirmed, as they would again and again, the evils of an unrestricted Government.

America was singularly different, thanks to the intellectual brilliance of Paine, Jefferson, Madison and the other Founders, and the remarkable fact that George Washington had no interest in aggregating all power unto himself, and longed only for retirement to Mount Vernon.

Thus the United States has enjoyed a unique Freedom From Government. The question is, can it endure, or has it run its course?

In this book, I hope to examine some of the major factors which will determine how that question is answered. As I write, the nation is experiencing extraordinary economic challenges, which I believe are the result of the subverting and circumventing of restrictions in the Constitution, and most notably in the Bill of Rights, by people who both believe in and benefit from the expansion of Government at the literal and figurative expense of The People.

They believe in a long list of Freedom To’s, which they propose to hand out in return for acquiescence to their power grabs. And they have little concern about the Freedom From Government that is the only true measure of individual Liberty.

If loss of understanding or clouding of the meaning of the concept of Freedom is any barometer of Government’s success in subversion of its restrictions, there may be but precious little time left before it is too late.

This is the burden thrust by time and circumstance on our present generations. Is America to remain a beacon to a world beset with oppression? If so, we must restore the clear understanding of Liberty established by the Founders and preserved by generations of patriots who have sacrificed to defend it. The true and historical meaning of Liberty is worth whatever sacrifice is demanded of us in order that we may fulfill our moral obligation to pass on a better way of life to our descendants and extend the blessings of America across the globe. Nothing less than the flourishing and well- being of humanity are at stake.

5. This famous maxim apparently originated with John Philpot Curran (1750-1817), an Irish orator and political leader. It was used by President Andrew Jackson in his farewell address.

6. The most important office had an enclosed parking area with an armed guard

7. Speech at the Virginia Convention to ratify the Federal Constitution (1788-06-06)

CHAPTER 3: THE RIGHT TO ACHIEVE AND THE COLLECTIVE USE OF PRODUCTIVITY

Suppose everyone who lives on your block has a say in how the money you earn is to be spent. You are able, industrious, and work very hard. You want to provide for the well-being of your family. You work to save for your children’s education and a comfortable retirement for your mother and father. But some who live on the block do not share your drive. Some do not share your ability. Some do not want to work. But in our little thought experiment, everyone on the block has a say in how the fruits of your labor are to be spent.

At a block meeting it is decided that some of your money is to be spent for neighborhood clothes. “But I won’t have enough money to help my parents,” you protest. They respond that those who do not wish to work need clothes, and surely you can see that their warmth is more important than your parents’ comfort. After all, your parents are not cold or poorly clothed.

They have also decided to spend some of your money for food. “But I won’t have enough left for my children’s education,” you protest. They respond that those who do not work need food, and surely you can see that their hunger is more important than your children’s education. Only a selfish person would think that their children’s education is more important than feeding hungry people.

Your neighbors living on the block concede they do not have the same drive to succeed that you do. But they point out their parents did not teach them the same values which you were taught, so your advantage is unfair. Many also say it is unfair that you have more money than they have. Your wealth, they say, is a direct consequence of your drive to succeed, which they were unfairly denied by their upbringing. You suggest they could correct the inequity of the past by now educating themselves, or by working harder, now that they see the difference it makes. Perhaps we will, they say, but for now, we need food and clothing, and they vote to take even more from your earnings.

This continues until your own financial circumstances become threatened. Since you can no longer provide for your family, your wife takes a job so you can make ends meet. You both continue to work ever harder to earn extra money for the kids’ education. But even before your paychecks are deposited to your accounts, the folks on the block find a way to spend much of it. Finally you have had enough. “I won’t pay any longer,” you protest. The folks on the block respond that we live under the “rule of law.” They point out the law says that they have the right to share in the decisions as to how your earnings are spent. And you are told that the Government has used some of your money to hire enforcers to come and take it forcibly if you refuse to pay. In fact, to make it harder for you not to comply with Government wishes, they have told your employers to take a certain amount of your money away from your paychecks. If your employers do not comply with this law they have passed, they will send the enforcers around to see them! You can’t even vote to change the laws because those receiving benefit from the money taken from you, continue to support leaders who give them more of your earnings.

In the schools your children are taught to feel guilty about having a greater opportunity, because you are passing your values of education and hard work on to them. And they are taught that Robin Hood was a hero because he “stole from the rich and gave to the poor.” They are taught “rule of law” and “majority rule.” You note that your children are becoming very confused about the values you have always believed and sought to pass on to them.

You have been alarmed for some time. Now, you are also becoming confused for it seems the system you have so cherished has become stacked against you. And each layer protects and reinforces the next, preventing any meaningful change. The “majority” on your block seem willing to use the “rule of law” as a tool to take what is yours.

You no longer know what to do. Even though you are working harder than ever before, you are told that you and your children will have to accept a lower standard of living. You know that something is dreadfully wrong, but you are unable to pin down the exact nature of the problem. You don’t know how to begin to correct the problem because it seems that most of those on the block are in agreement with the system.

And your hopes for the future are growing progressively dim.

You may think this fable is far-fetched, but in fact the arguments the neighbors make are precisely those that people who believe in a collectivist society make in politics. “From each according to his abilities,” Karl Marx advocated, “to each according to his needs.” But such a system is both morally unacceptable and economically foolish. Think about the collectivist block again. How long could such a system endure? Not very, because once the productive people are financially ruined, it must collapse.