LIBERTARIAN RHETORIC, COLLECTIVIST PRACTICE

President Bush's audience was clearly most stirred, Tuesday evening, when his State of the Union address turned to the promise of a thrilling patriotic war on Iraq.

"If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning," the president said after detailing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's cruelty. "We seek peace, we strive for peace, and sometimes peace must be defended," the president said, to booming applause. "If war is forced upon us, we will fight with the full force and might of the United States military, and we will prevail."

These were stirring words, and true, if taken in isolation. The problem, as with Lincoln's Gettysburg address 140 years ago, is that they are not appropriate to the case at hand.

Lincoln — as most schoolchildren recall — declared over the fresh corpses of the fallen at Gettysburg that the Civil war was a great struggle, "testing whether ... any nation" dedicated to the principle of "government of the people, by the people, for the people ... can long endure."

That was true. Problem is, the people fighting for that principle wore gray, not blue. An overwhelming majority of the populace of the South wished to set up for themselves a new government free of Washington, just as Jefferson and Washington had decided to break their bonds with England 87 years before.

The Confederacy — despite the horrible flaw of retaining slavery (but remember, Lincoln repeatedly said the South could keep its slaves if only they'd come back into his Union) — was in fact a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people," whereas "Reconstruction," under armed occupation from 1865 to 1877 ... clearly was not.

Lincoln's goal — like that of Cornwallis and Howe a century earlier — was in fact to invade that newly independent nation and subdue it by the sword. And he didn't care how many ways he violated the Constitution (mandatory conscription, jailing newspaper editors, martial law, a socialist income tax, worthless greenbacks) in the process.

So as it turns out, the principle Mr. Lincoln so movingly voiced, was the one he was fighting ... against.

Similarly, Mr. Bush is correct when he paints Saddam Hussein as a cruel and murderous dictator. But he's not the world's only cruel dictator — when do we mount our invasion to liberate Tibet, or Chechnya?

Nor is the assertion that Saddam's Iraq is a direct threat to the United States — that war has been "forced upon us" — clearly established. In fact, the notion that Iraq (hardly a sea power) could effectively attack the U.S. or our merchant shipping is quite far-fetched.

(I happen to support Israel's right to exist. But if attacking Iraq is really all about Iraq's potential to threaten Israel — Israel now being our 51st state — shouldn't we at least have been told, so we could sew another star on our flags? And when do we indict for treason the Israeli/Americans who shot up the U.S.S. Liberty?)

Anyway, Mr. Bush faces a more serious problem — at least, the way politicians look at things.

Because of the quick success of his father's war against Iraq a decade ago, the president today faces a conundrum of heightened expectations: Anything but a quick victory and regime change in Iraq is now likely to raise questions about the current president's constancy and competence, while even a sharp success runs the risk of being greeted with the same, "Ho hum, what about the economy?" fickleness that turned George H.W. Bush into a one-term president.

It was thus no surprise that President Bush, Jr., spent the first half of his rousing State of the Union address Tuesday focusing on the domestic economy.

At the heart of President Bush's domestic agenda lies a $674 billion plan to revive the economy with tax cuts and Medicare and medical liability reform — as well as what is arguably his most questionable initiative: efforts to offer federal tax subsidies to religious groups offering community services.

(Donations to churches are already tax-exempt — why risk ensnaring them in a soulless civil bureaucracy with direct tax funding, instead of trusting Americans in a lower-tax environment to simply fund their own voluntary charities? Taxes are still collected by men with guns who will set your furniture out on the sidewalk if you don't cooperate, right?)

Challenging Congress to help him create more jobs, the president asserted: "The nation needs more small businesses to open, more employers to put up the sign that says, 'Help wanted.' Jobs are created when the economy grows; the economy grows when Americans have more money to spend and invest; and the best, fairest way to make sure Americans have the money is not to tax it away in the first place."

A profound truth, articulately stated. But if this is true, why do we need to spend $674 billion in additional tax money, doing something that'll happen by itself if we simply cut taxes?

The president was inspiring when he called for reform of the actuarially bankrupt "Social Security" Ponzi scheme by "giving younger workers a chance" to invest in retirement accounts "that they will control and they will own."

Only, I thought we all had that right already. What new right is it, precisely, that the Congress would be "giving" us ... and why will only "younger workers" get it?

Does the president mean he will now set some limited portion of our savings free of the income tax? Then why not simply repeal the whole thing — or declaratively rule that it never applied to wages, in the first place? Think of what that would do for our economic growth.

And finally, the president asserted "Instead of bureaucrats and lawyers and HMOs, we must put doctors and patients back in charge of American medicine."

But "These problems will not be solved with a nationalized health care system that dictates coverage and rations care," the president was quick to warn. "Instead, we must work toward a system in which all Americans ... choose their own doctors. ..."

This all sounds great, because what Mr. Bush has described here is the free market.

So why did the president then promptly propose billions of dollars in new spending over the next decade to offer tax-funded prescription drugs to Medicare recipients willing to use alternatives such as managed care — slyly pointing out this benefit would be "just like you in Congress" enjoy?

All the president needs to do, in order to "put doctors and patients back in charge of American medicine," is to declare that medical practice in America is henceforward free of any government intervention, as it always should have been — seeking an advisory ruling from the Republican-dominated Supreme Court that medical liberty is protected by the Ninth and 14th Amendments, and that Medicare, Medicaid, the FDA, state licensing of doctors, and the War on Drugs are all thus thoroughly unconstitutional, and therefore banned.

In the next few days, expect discussion of the president's speech to focus on his rousing call to war in Iraq. But — as the Bush family knows all too well — this president's political future is more likely to hinge on the domestic economy ...

An economy which would be in much better shape, could we believe for a minute this president's free-market rhetoric — instead of the concrete evidence of the ballooning welfare state he still so devotedly funds.

Regarding libertarianism and objectivism - you may know that Ayn Rand was very critical of libertarians. I think the idea behind this was forming a political party (a collective) out of an idea that inherently stressed the individual. Anyhow, libertarianism wasn't spawned from Objectivism, thought the two have a lot in common. Libertarians would probably consider their origins to lie in England and Scotland, and would cite English common law, the Magna Carta etc. See this thread:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/836099/posts

for an interesting perspective on "conservative libertariansim".

Libertarianism, like all other philosophies, has fundamental axioms. At least one of these is the concept of "Natural Law", which I would summarize as the concept that humans have certain rights by which they're endowed by a Creator - they have these rights because they exist, not because any government "gave" them these rights. For example, all humans have a pre-existing natural right to defend themselves when attacked, and all have a right to keep what is theirs.

So I'm not quite sure what you mean by libertarism seeking support across religions and moral systems - that it is the SUV of political systems. It is simply an attempt at a consistent set of beliefs. In fact, I think this "everything to everybody" argument more applies to political parties of today, which don't necessarily espouse consistency. Their "ideology" is really defined on how they stand on a given issue, and these stances have even flip-flopped over the decades. A good example of this would be foregin policy. Years ago, "conservatives" espoused "isolationism", whereas today such a view is considered to be held by "liberals".

You seem to be criticizing libertarians for unsuccesfully carrying the torch of universal morals, I guess. Am I interpreting that correctly? If so, what is the objective? To stick to a coherent moral philosophy, or to be all things to all people? You can't criticize libbers for failing to live up to both, since it's one or the other.

I don't compromise on my "pet issues" in the sense that if a candidate I've voted for goes against them, I will no longer vote for that candidate. I guess this explains why I cannot see myself voting for G.W., as he has greatly expanded the role of the Feds in government schools, supported campaign finance reform, and has begun to show support for victim disarmament. I do vote for Republicans that support my pet issues, even if they don't satisfy 100% of what I want. To me, that shows that the critique that libertarians are simply hopeless ideologues is unfair. I would say that they've refused to compromise after a certain point.

The only alternative to winning elections isn't open revolution, though I suppose it is an alternative. A book which details how this scenario is most likely to unfold, if it is to unfold at all, is Unintended Consequences, by John Ross. For the benefit of all reading now or in the future, I do not advocate a revolution against the US government. Unintended Consequences is not a manual for the murder of Federal agents.

Now that we're past that point of paranoia, when I mentioned that third parties don't need to win to change politics, I was referring to a slow culture change. For example, the US Socialist Party never won a single election, yet their platform from 1932 is openly advocated by both the Republicans and Democrats of today. This is not meant as a pointless insult - it is a fact. Look at the Socialist Platform of 1932 and the New Deal, which implemented many of these same ideals. The dialectic process has slowly changed America's culture from a libertarian one to a socialist one. At another time, we might discuss who some of these drivers were, such as the Frankfurt School. It's pretty interesting stuff.

If libertarians DO drain conservative votes, then that is how libertarians affect change without winning elections. Libertarians aren't necessarily waiting for republicans to lose so "their chance" can come sooner, any more than they're waiting for the democracts to lose. They want to see liberty advanced, no matter who is in office. If that is the Republicans, wonderful. My theory is that if the Republicans did lose elections and they knew it was because of libertarian sentiment, the party would respond, much in the same way the party has responded to the voters who have adopted the socialist mindset over the years. They simply pander to the voters to get elected - that is clear. A G.W. like candidate would never win the Republican nomination under those conditions; but you can't get there by a slow, total compromise. The opposite is true. In the end, it comes down to the voters, and how to change back to a culture of liberty. But how do plan to foster this culture change, to reverse the trend, esp. when you rail on the voters for voting for what they want (voting libertarian instead of voting Republican)?

This is where we come to the trend. Like Christians making claims about Christ and pointing to Easter as the primary evidence for their claims, much of my argument erodes if there is no trend. You said in your last response that the trend does not exist. Do you really believe that the size and scope of the Federal government has not drastically increased since the first half of last century? We need to establish that. I may have more choices and opportunities, but that is not freedom. Those concepts could be equated with materialism, for example. I do have more choices largely because society on the whole is wealthier than it was in 1787, but not because I am more free. I do not keep the fruits of my labor like I would have back then, for example. Our discussion should focus on this.

Again, it's like a vicious cycle for Republicans.
(1) You can't vote libertarian because doing so would elect democrats, so vote Republican in order to get liberty in your lifetime.
(2)Once a Republican does get in he/she can't espouse freedom because doing so would cause them to lose office.
(3)Go to step (1)

Liberty and freedom in the polical context are synonymous, and relate to natural rights to the libertarian. Your distinction is not in line with the common parlance, and freedom as you've defined it above is more along the lines of "license" than it is "liberty". The standard to which politicians are held is individual liberty - abolute liberty being the total absence of coercion, not the license to do whatever you want to any individual out of total power, as this would be an infringement on another's individual rights. I do not see how this would lead to anarcho-capitalism. Millions of consentual interactions in marraige, charity, communication, and markets in general would disprove this.

I tried to find some information on Google regarding the origins of libertarianism. It looks pretty muddy, but after a few minutes I couldn't really support my claim that its creation was inspired by Objectivism, although I see it's not an uncommon view. On the contrary, it looks like one or more of the philosophical leaders preceded Rand. Here's an argument over who started the libertarian left and right wings and a very brief explanation of Rand's objections to Libertarians

It's been a while since I looked into the idea of Natural Law, here's a agressive (possibly overreaching) criticism of it from and Objectivist perspective. I just read the first few paragraph's claim that it's not scientifically grounded. I'm sure there's more to both sides, but I personally don't recall finding it to be too compelling.

Nevertheless, I think there's little difference between Objectivists and many Libertarians regarding Liberty. Briefly from an Objectivist perspective, man's unique nature is derived from his ability to reason and act in his rational self-interest, and Liberty is essential for that.

But here's where I think all this leaves people behind, "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic" while over looking a larger physical obstacle. In the dynamics of society, the distinction between liberty and license all but lost. I don't dispute that the Libertarian ideal is one of maximizing liberty not license, but to say it's synonymous with freedom seems to open the door for a bit creative accounting. If the an ideology more narrowly defines freedom to be just liberty from something that's to be drastically reduced without regard to the restrictions that would arise from whatever replaces it, the measure of freedom's artificially magnified.

Regarding the definition of Liberty as "freedom from coercion". Looking back and trying to recall where I've been coerced, a manager, an ex-girlfriend, and perhaps a client or two come to mind before government. Of course, that wasn't at the proverbial "point of a gun", but still with significant economic consequences. Government with its tax collection, regulations and laws certainly has a larger effect, but not with the objective in and of itself of molding my behavior. Government has crept into all aspects of the economy, provided a great deal of benefit (for us and itself) but bloated into a draconian financial burden.

I know that a case could be made that the trade off of liberty for license will result in the long term loss of both. There's certainly the potential for it, but our history hasn't shown it. As government expanded beyond its design, we're more free to pursue diverse careers, hobbies, travel, eccentricities etc. than when our country was undeveloped and our government was small. I don’t think that's just the result of wealth alone, look at opportunities in wealthy Islamic states. I think it's also dependent on culture technology and general economic development.

Perhaps all that could have been achieved as well or better with no government expansion, (I think it's possible) but the impact of private mechanisms for bringing this about is a big unknown. In a more dynamic fully libertarian America dominated by aggressive private power brokers in various industries, perhaps even competing authorities, would the more narrow definition of freedom be a measure of anything meaningful? If various competing schools, regulators, and legal authorities and new kinds of institutions filled the government gap and they needed long term contracts for stability, and if people frequently found themselves needing to enter into them to stay competitive, wouldn't those relationships be a meaningful measure of freedom?

Using this more broad, common and perhaps its most meaningful definition, there's no trend in the loss of freedom in America today. For every spot that it's eroded, there's probably another where it's enhanced. People are burdened and that needs to be improved, but they're generally free, prosperous, safe and lead rich fulfilling lives. And that's approaching what's proper for the lives of rational men in an Objectivist sense.

I'd like to touch on other parts of your last post, but I think this is an important issue to work through this first.

I agree there is more in common than not regarding objectivism and libertarianism. Being the the Ayn Rand was an atheist, it logically follows that the idea of natural law would be viewed with skepticism (being that natural law is an axiom which assumes a Creator). However, I would propose that anything, even math, is based on axioms, and as such that axiom can be critiqued.

I don't quite follow this paragraph:

"But here's where I think all this leaves people behind, "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic" while over looking a larger physical obstacle. In the dynamics of society, the distinction between liberty and license all but lost. I don't dispute that the Libertarian ideal is one of maximizing liberty not license, but to say it's synonymous with freedom seems to open the door for a bit creative accounting. If the an ideology more narrowly defines freedom to be just liberty from something that's to be drastically reduced without regard to the restrictions that would arise from whatever replaces it, the measure of freedom's artificially magnified."

I think it is key to our discussion. What do you mean by the artificial magnification of freedom arising from the convention of defining total freedom as the absence of coercion?

Yes, coercion can certainly occur apart from the government's actions, though it is much less insidious because choice is still involved at some level, moreso than when government (i.e. monopoly on force) occurs. At work, for example, you can quit and go elsewhere. You do not have a choice to not pay your taxes. Realizing that the total absence of coercion would not only be hard to define, but also impossible to realize (unless one truly thinks of a utopia), libertarianism focuses on minimizing the worst coercion - government.

Regarding: "As government expanded beyond its design, we're more free to pursue diverse careers, hobbies, travel, eccentricities etc. than when our country was undeveloped and our government was small. I don’t think that's just the result of wealth alone, look at opportunities in wealthy Islamic states. I think it's also dependent on culture technology and general economic development."

The greater number of options in pursuing careers, hobbies, travel etc. is not the result of greater freedom. It is the result of wealth - wealth being defined as the sum of all goods and services, and not money, which is access to wealth (you've basically referred to it as culture, technology and economic development etc., I use the catch-all term of "wealth"). Surely government can restrict travel, but the founders felt that it was so apparent that government should in no way restrict travel or any other myriad rights that individuals have naturally, that they wrote the ninth amendment. As the country develops, wealth is increasing, resulting in greater opportunity overall. The development has nothing to do with government; well, it does in a negative sense - if government refuses to get out of the way or does not set up the legal framework for protecting property, the development occurs exponentially slower.

"In a more dynamic fully libertarian America dominated by aggressive private power brokers in various industries, perhaps even competing authorities, would the more narrow definition of freedom be a measure of anything meaningful?"

A fully libertarian America would not be dominated by aggressive private power brokers. I would say that this is a myth that I often hear from those who favor varying degrees of government regulation of the economy (Keynesian economists, I suppose). There has never been an example of a private enterprise that held a monopoly, unless that enterprise had backing or license from government. Even Rockefeller lost a tremendous amound of market share to foreign oil BEFORE the anti-trust laws were enacted. What pro-regulationists often call a "monopoly" is simply individual consumers expressing their choice to buy a superior product.

Finally, I must address this assertion that America has experienced no loss of freedom. I want to be thorough to show that I am not simply pissing and moaning about nothing, but I don't want to come off as "ranting" (which I tend to to quite often, as I'm sure you've realized). I'm going to list the tangible things that I see that amound to grave losses of freedom - things the founders would not have stood for. Remember, they revolted over taxes that were much lower than we pay today.

First, though, freedom is an absolute concept, and so it cannot be a zero-sum game. You cannot say that we've lost here and gained there as so we're more free. I know there is a tendency to look at it this way, but if you think about it, freedom cannot be judged this way. Freedom lost is freedom lost, period. Without this standard the very meaning of freedom is in question.

I'll do my best to be brief in this list. If you'd like more explanation, just say so.

1st Amendment - Campaign Finance reforms esp. 1974 FECA laws and amendments. Also supreme court defining "corporate speech" and other collective speech rights.

2nd Amendment - My pet issue. Where do I start? The BATF, of course. Senate hearing in '82 showed they've been out of control for decades. Kenneth Balew shooting, treasury agents with sub-machine guns raiding homes with improper warrants, killing people for failing to pay a $200 tax. No evidence of crime leads them to create the catch-all "conspiracy to violate federal firearms laws". Militia leaders were imprisoned on this same principle, having committed no crime whatsoever.

4th Amendment - A whole host of assett forfeiture laws regardless of a crime having been committed, largely due to supposed 'drug' charges. (See fear.org). Read about Trails End Ranch. Read about EPA redefining farmers' property as protected "wetlands" and bankrupting farmers and their families. Ditto with cattle ranchers in "protected habitats" out west. The helpful EPA federal agents raid farms with black ninja outfits and MP5 submachine guns. Drug war gives pretext for government to search your bank account, internet servers etc. and the mere presence of a large amount of cash is automatically presumed to be drug money and is seized with no evidence.

5th Amendment - No due process when dealing with the IRS (no trial by jury in "ax court") IRS can freeze assetts without evidence of a crime or without proof of "tax evasion" (as if individuals were liable for the federal income tax). Partents cannot give their kids money without it being subject to a 'gift tax' (and if they deposit the money in such a way as to SUGGEST they might have been doing do to evade tracking by the Feds, they are guilty of evasion). Ditto with the estate tax. IRS is out of control - they arrested Desert Strom vets when they came home for not paying their income taxes when overseas, even though they could not do so because of the lost income during service.

9th & 10th Amendment - As if they didn't even exist. Esp. the 10th. What more can I say? Try objecting to the Feds involvement in public education on the basis of the tenth amendment. The likely response is, "Which one is that?"

General Whining:

Government "restoring rights" of those who were once felons. This cannot be since they do not grant them to begin with.

Jury stacking - Judges routinely tell juries they must judge the guilt or innocence of a defendant based on the law and only the law, and not their conscience. If this is true, why do we have a jury system? Look up Laura Kreole (sp?). Jury nullification is a form of defense against tyranny also.

The Federal Reserve system. Too much to say here but this is another hot topic.

End List

I realize that a lot of these may seem like nitpicky, trivial matters, esp. if they don't involve areas that you particularly care about. To a gun nut, though, they're real. Or to someone who gets paid in cash after selling some personal property, and is pulled over for speeding on the way home, they learn that the fourth amendment doesn't mean what it says.

The point is not that America sucks, I'm going to Mexico. The point is that even a short time ago, an American didn't need to worry about any of these blatant violations of the Bill of Rights. Sure, the days of the founders were not a utopia. There were problems like there are with any human endeavor, but government was more or less held in check. Today, the Feds dominate, contrary to the intent of the system. I believe this is so clear that it is undeniable.

I'm honestly doing my damndest to be brief! Bear with me.........

It looks like I didn't do any better of a job a keeping this short…

I was as unhappy with my last post as with anything I've written. Possibly because I'm just now trying to formulate this concept, one that I haven't seen before, and it requires a reorganization of many others. I think this will be more clear.

We're not in any disagreement regarding our loss of liberties or the definition of liberty, be it freedom from coercion or freedom from government, there's not a large difference. The definition's fairly clear, but it's also very academic and all but lost to 90% of Americans. Freedom as I think it's used also means ability or lack of restraint. "I broke up with my girlfriend and now I'm free". "Working as a teacher's great because my summers are free". "I live in the country where I'm more free to do my one thing". Freedom and liberty are two separate words for a reason. From what I can tell, even when "freedom" is used in a political context outside academia, more often than not it's referencing liberty + opportunity. MLK wasn't talking about a reduction in government intrusion in his "let freedom ring" speech. And I don't think that in the hours following 9/11, Bush was talking only about limited government when he opened with, "Freedom itself was attacked today by faceless cowards". I think he was also referencing an attack on broader western values and institutions that underpin freedom.

I think its a broader definition of freedom that's people's objective. From a utilitarian perspective, it's the ends, whats best for man. Liberty's the means, but not the only means. I don’t' think the word "wealth" adequately defines the rest. When America had greater liberty, wealth did not override cultural limitations on women, homosexuals or blacks. Not just liberty and wealth, freedom's a result of a larger environmental infrastructure.

Components of this infrastructure include social mores, organizations, technology, as well as liberty. Take any one away, and freedom's potentially reduced. Liberty is insufficient to enable freedom where mores are distorted such as in cultist, puritanical or racist communities. Liberty may exist in tribal, frontier or lawless areas, but man's ability to rise to his potential there without the benefits of business, social and government organizations is questionable at best. When this nation was in it's technologically infancy, the free time we have to pursue our interests was devoured by tedious chores.

Liberty's not be a zero sum game like you said, but freedom is. Freedom as the measure of one's ability and opportunity, is closer to what man wants and needs. The means to freedom, as referenced above, work dynamically and are poorly understood. But it's reasonable to believe that one can come at the expense of another. Just as it's reasonable to believe that a culture of toleration that refuses to condemn almost anything would result in social conflict an decay, it's reasonable to believe that a nation that eliminates almost all government would result in the same. Both are probably unprovable, and the point of diminishing returns is unknown.

I don't think that businesses will behave well if 95% of restrictions are eliminated. I think there will be "unforeseen consequences" to their elimination, and I don't think that the social/private mechanisms that come to fill the gaps will come without a price on the infrastructure of our freedom. Perhaps the price is less than that of our current government, that's a big unknown, but there would be a price. If this price is unaccounted for and unrecognized, it's the "artificial magnification of freedom" of libertarian policies that I referred to.

It's unknown if the elimination of the EPA would result in cities or regions that are miserable, if not uninhabitable, degrading the organizational footings of our freedom. Maybe regulation of medicine and drugs was essential to keeping the confidence that the industry demanded to grow into the advanced science it is today, promoting the technological foundation to our freedom. I could elaborate on this if you like, but I want to be brief here because that's not the focus of what I want to communicate.

I'm not claiming that it's the government's role to promote the means of freedom, or even that it should be. I want to get back to the question of Republicans having been compromised verses Libertarians being naïve, but central to that is the need to counter a justification for libertarian policies, that we're loosing our freedom, that there's a crisis in that regard.

I think the above makes a pretty good case that it's only liberty, not freedom that has suffered. I'm not arguing that greater liberty would result in less freedom. I think the opposite is true to an extent. But there're complications when pursuing ideals in a competitive democracy. I really want to get back to the Republican verses Libertarian debate, but I wouldn't be able to make the case for Republicans if there were a real decay of American freedom. On the contrary, I think on the whole Americans are freer today than any people anytime anywhere bar nothing.

I want to resolve that before moving on, but I also want to briefly address an ancillary issue brought up last time regarding axioms. I don’t disagree that there's some very small leap of faith at the base of any reasoning, accepting our own senses or even basic concepts like free will because our hand moves when we command it. But the degree of faith required to accept that is in a much different league than that of accepting complex constructs like religious. I look at that kind of faith as a larger layer of faith on top of the mathematical one that I think you hinted at comparing it with. It's like comparing having to believe one's own eyes while reading scripture to believing the message within it.

To start off, I'm glad to see that we both agree that liberty has lost ground. I think that is undeniable.

Given this, then, I think your post expresses the following:

Freedom = Liberty + Opportunity;

Freedom as you've defined it here is increasing on the aggregate, since opportunity is increasing, despite the fact that liberty is abated.

My arguments are based on this above equation accurately summing up your last post.

The bottom line of my argument - the summary - is that I don't think you can define freedom in this way. I therefore necessarily think that freedom as I've defined it (Freedom = Liberty) is decreasing, which means that I believe the trend of the loss of freedom does in fact exist, which is why I'm so critical of the Republicans and the compromise politics they practice.

While the common usage of the word "freedom" often varies, meaning in some cases the lack of restraint as you point out, we're talking about politics and hence freedom in a political context. Yes, people even use the word "freedom" within the political context as including liberty as well as opportunity, but this is only because they don't understand what government can and can't do, or more properly what the proper function of government is (or because politicians preach such platitudes knowing that they'll be effective at stirring up the support of the masses whose understanding of politics is lacking).

In other words, I feel that wealth increase does not and cannot come from government. In the case of government control over a society, government seeks to redistribute wealth. In the case of a free society, government seeks to create a framework of law so that individuals are free to enjoy the fruits of their labor, free to enjoy the benefits generated by their creative ideas, and free to bear the consequences of their poor decisions. In neither case does government create wealth.

I know you're critical of my use of the term "wealth". It's sort of a catch-all term that I use loosely, in a non-conventional way. Perhaps there would be a better word, but to make my use of the word clear, wealth comes in many forms. There is material wealth, intellectual wealth, and even cultural wealth.

An increase in any type of wealth represents an increase in the quality of life overall. We see an increase in material wealth, for example, by the emergence of new technology that improves our lives, as you've pointed out. We see in increase in intellectual wealth, for example, when new ideas come out, or when information in managed more efficiently. We see an increase in cultural wealth, for example, when individuals of different or even like cultures, societies, or communities bond together and live peacefully, cooperating voluntarily to advance themselves.

To look at it another way, wealth is material goods, enhanced by intellect and voluntary cooperation. Intellect on the whole necessarily increases over time, so wealth necessarily increases on aggregate, even if materials don't increase.

This wealth increase, however, does not at all mean freedom has increased - it simply means individuals, despite whatever the government has done to impede them (or to encourage them by getting out of the way) have improved their lot in life, and the lives of other, in seeking their self-interest.

The great patriot (and very talented brewer) Samuel Adams even distinguished between the two:

“If ye love WEALTH better than LIBEERTY, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countryman.” (emphasis mine)

So in looking at your equation again:

Freedom = Liberty + Opportunity;

"Opportunity" is the result of the idea of "wealth" - (intellectual and cultural wealth, even material wealth like expressways that make economic opportunity possible). "Opportunity" is spawned from "Liberty", and they can't be separate terms (liberty leads to wealth creation, leading to opportunity).

Being that wealth is not from government, and being that we're talking necessarily about how government action influences freedom overall, I eliminate the term "opportunity" from the above equation and arrive at (for the political context)

Freedom = Liberty

From before, it seems we both agree that liberty has been slowly lost over the years, thus meaning freedom has been eroded, thus suggesting a trend.

I've up to now simply provided my answer to your last post in an abstract sense. I had wanted to take some of the lines from your last post and refute them individually, but I think that the abstract argument, for now, will suffice (and must be dealt with in any case). I do hope that I haven't overlooked or misinterpreted any of your arguments, and that, in sticking to the absract, my post doesn't come off as too general to be applicable to what you've written.

Good to read your posts again! I appreciate it when people demonstrate the ability to as you do to maintain focus and strive to address the core disagreement. It's very rare.

To first summarize my point for you as you did with me, Defining freedom as just liberty seems to be in error, and even if it weren't, it would have little value outside academia when compared to the more broad understanding of Freedom.

I hope that I'm following the formula you suggested here faithfully:

Wealth = material wealth + intellectual wealth + cultural wealth + (I might add organizational wealth)

Opportunity = liberty + (wealth (or wealth recognized))

Freedom = liberty + opportunity

Freedom (in a political context) = liberty (because "opportunity" is not created by government)

Here's where I think the problems begin. Government does have a role in opportunity. Even in its proper form, it protects opportunity from threats. In a perhaps questionable form, it promotes technical standards across industries that probably enhance the economy. And even in its greatly enhanced form of today, it manages environmental resources with a long-term focus in a way that may or may not be possible in the free market. (Alternative environmental management theories abound, but AFAIK, none are even remotely proven.) Therefore, opportunity can't be removed from the equation.

But I'd like to put that aside just for a moment to mention the logical conclusion of the definition of Freedom = Liberty. If freedom is the ultimate value, then in a political context the ideal would be closer to primitive tribal communities in mountains of the Congo, an isolated American frontier in the 18th century or perhaps even lawless area like Somalia. It seems theoretically possible to have great liberty with very little opportunity, but that wouldn't be the ideal ground for man to live his life.

For those two reasons, logic and utility, I think the definition of freedom should include opportunity, even in a political context. And as mentioned earlier, I see no real freedom crisis. That's to say that erosion of liberty's not a concern, just that the current state does not justify a revolutionary opposition to the Republicans for their willingness to bend to political forces in order to remain in power.

In your last reply I see the equation:

Opportunity = Liberty + wealth (or wealth recognized)

I don't agree with this for the same reason I disagree with the equation;

Freedom = Liberty + Opportunity.

I think that reason is the heart of our disagreement.

You say that government does have a role in opportunity, and I concur. However, admitting that government has a role to play is not the same as saying that wealth is from government (and claiming that wealth is from government would then give further support to the model which includes liberty and opportunity as part of freedom - the equation which I dispute).

As you mention in your last post, government does protect opportunity from threats. Exactly. The job of government is to protect property, largely by enforcing contracts and providing a means for restitution (I'm also including one's body as "property". It all comes down to property rights, in an absract sense). This is done through laws that seek to punish those who have infringed on property, after the fact. Anything that seeks to prevent action a priori is usually a bad idea. As Ayn Rand said, the law can only be reactive, not proactive.

Think of it in terms of traffic. The law can lay down rules and these rules will always by definition hinder traffic flow - but the idea is that these restrictions will make it possible, and indeed encourage, individuals to use the system without fear of chaos.

For example, it puts in stoplights and can do so anywhere it wants, but it can't make people drive on the road, and it can't create efficient traffic flow, but it can encourage it. Additionally, too many traffic lights will ruin the system entirely.

I suppose my point of this seeminly unrelated example is that some rules are clearly necessary - the question lies in what types of rules there should be, and understanding what government is capable of doing and what it cannot accomplish. In understanding this last point (what it cannot accomplish), one must realize that government cannot create anything - it can only encourage creation through an intelligent system, a system that I contend maximizes individual liberty (one's liberty ends at the point at which another is infringed upon).

So in short, yes, government has a role to play in opportunity. Enforce individual property rights which hopefully encourages the creation of wealth - though it cannot create wealth.

Ayn Rand in her book "Capitalism - The Unknown Ideal" remarked that (I'm paraphrasing here) the justification for private property ("Capitalism") lies not in the fact that it creates the most wealth for the greatest number of people - rather, its justification lies in the morality, the morality which I suppose she derives from reason, that one's property is one's property. The fact that wealth is created so abundantly under this system is simply a positive by-product. So she acknowledges the difference as well.

I think your other points about government's role in opportunity (promoting technical standards and management of environmental resources) are flawed, but the reasons for which I disagree are not relevant to our main disagreement. One thing that came to mind immediately, relating to government promoting standards, is ISO. It actually traces its roots back to the UN if you can believe it. Anyhow, I think it does a lot of harm that is worth mentioning.

To make an abstract point about government-run systems, one of the problems that I see when people talk of a government system that "works" is one of creative accounting. People are always willing to look at the apparent benefits of such a system. However, when I provide tangible examples of how such a system screws individuals that would otherwise likely have produced something of benefit to society, I either get no answer or else I'm accused of supporting a utopian ideal.

But the opposite is true. I realize utopia is not possible. Like you, I'm looking for the best, most workable system. But in discussing the merits and drawbacks of such systems, I'm simply demanding that, to be fair, the good be included with the bad.

One last point I'd like to make - I don't see why it is necessarily true that, if Freedom = Liberty, the ultimate realization of this would be to live out in the middle of nowhere. I believe you are again confusing liberty with license.

Upholding the sanctity of the individual is very appropriate for city-dwellers, for example. In fact, it is because such a system produces such wonderful end results in a collective we call "the market" that it is most appropriate for those living close together. Encouraging cooperation through mutually enjoyed wealth creation is what it's all about.

Remember, libertarians don't deny the existence of collectives - though some are simply fabricated by demagogues. They simply object to the glorification of the collective at the expense of the individuals that comprise these collectives.

In your last post, you said:

"I see no real freedom crisis. That's to say that erosion of liberty's not a concern, just that the current state does not justify a revolutionary opposition to the Republicans........"

Did you mean to say: "That's NOT to say that erosion of liberty's not a concern"??

Despite our disagreement, I'd still be puzzled if you found this erosion to not be troublesome.

Regards

Sorry being so late getting back with you. I hope the fire hasn't been put out of our discussion because we had a good framework for working through it.

Last I recall, our disagreement as to whether republicans were too complacent or libertarians were too utopian pivoted on the question of whether or not we're in crisis and rapidly loosing our freedom. And the reason we saw it differently was because in political sense you defined freedom as "liberty", and I defined it more broadly as both liberty and opportunity.

Freedom = Liberty vs. Freedom = Liberty + Opportunity

I mentioned that I subscribe to the wider definition because government has a role in creating opportunity. Therefore it's politically relevent. Although you recognized the role, you disagreed because government does not "create wealth". I don't think that’s required in order to accept the broader definition, as long as governments role is justified. So if you accept that, we're left with that question. Is it justified?

It looks like you steered away from justifying it on utilitarian grounds by suggesting another measure using Rand's words referring to a moral rather than material justification for capitalism. But that gets very circular because Objectivist morality's based on what's in man's rational self-interest. There's a very fine line between that and the utilitarian ideals, as I understand it, in that Objectivism only goes beyond utilitarianism's economic agnosticism by attempting to demonstrate that capitalism is the best political system for man to live in accordance with his nature. So if morality were the criteria for justifying governments role, we'd be reduced to claiming that freedom's synonymous with liberty simply because of belief in an economic theory that says it should be. That's circular to the max…

Therefor, I think we can say that Libertarians think we're in a freedom crisis because the libertarian ideology defines freedom that way. And because most people don't subscribe to the ideal of pure capitalism, I think that we can also say that liberty is not the common or "conventional" definition of freedom, even in a political context.

I haven't logged on to Free Republic much lately - esp. after I started getting censored by JimBob in very autocratic fashion, for simply posting non-profane, non-pejorative sentiments he disagreed with. So I got your reply late. Some comments:

To say I "recognize the role" that government plays in creating opportunity - or when I say government "plays a role" - that doesn't mean that they create anything or actively do anything, unless one considers that act of not doing anything to be actively doing something. The role they play, or that they're supposed to play, is to stay out.

I think that government's active creation vs. it's active non-involvment has much to do with our definition. So I would need you to clarify this:

"I don't think that’s required in order to accept the broader definition, as long as governments role is justified. So if you accept that......."

I don't accept this, based on my current understanding of your position.

I didn't mention Rand so much as an opener for a discussion on justification so much as I did it because you claimed to be an Objectivist. That statement shows that Rand, the founder of Objectivism, sees liberty and opportunity as two separate ideas that do not add up to freedom.

Let me try to explain my position with the aid of an article I recently came across, which I think has parallels to our discussion.

A guy named John Ross, the "gun culture" author who I really like, recently made a speech in which he claimed that "In many ways, things are better for us gun owners now then they ever have been in the past".

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/929857/posts

Basically, if you read his arguments, much of what he cites to corroborate his claim has to do with the availability of guns in the marketplace. For example, since we have more and better semiauto centerfire rifles today compared to yesterday, and since we have magnum factory rifles that didn't before exist at all, we as gun owners are "better off" today than say, in 1932, in 1962 and in 1982.

I think this argument has many parallels to what you might say about freedom in general.

Of course, I might ask Mr. Ross, "What do you mean by "better off"? What "things" are "better" than before?"

In other words, as I said before, wealth will always increase on aggregate due to increases in technology, creative energies etc. In the case of guns, we have more and better guns today than we had 100 years ago, and it is safe to say that, 100 years from now, there will exist better guns than those that exist today. But while it might be correct to say that, with respect to gun availability and quality, that gun owners are "better off" today, it is not correct to say that gun owners are more free (though some of Ross' arguments deal directly with laws and this could be debated).

100 years ago, you could own the same weapons the government had without going to the State, on bended knee, and submitting your fingerprints and ID and all the other nonsense, that you must do today. While you may think that this is necessary, the point is that items that comprise "wealth" cannot be included in the freedom equation, since they exist and improve despite what government does to regulate them, though their improvement can be much reduced by burdensome laws.

Government did nothing to create those new guns - au contraire, it's laws have unintentionally prevented the design and creation of better, more advanced weapons.

And since we are talking about politics and hence necessarily the role government plays, for example, in relation to the individual's "gun rights", we need not bother talking about gun creation, advancement and availability when considering gun freedom - since government did nothing to actively affect (in a positive sense) the role of creating guns for individuals.

Said more directly, when we ask if gun owners are more or less free than they were 100 years ago, what we want to know specifically is the role government plays in restricting the individuals' creation, transfer, and ownership of guns today, compared to the role it played 100 years ago. We don't care to mention the obvious fact that today's weapons are better then they were yesterday.

In other words, if Sarah Brady's agenda of disarming the entire country were to come true in five years, following the fear generated by the creation and availability of a more lethal and efficient pistol caliber, I doubt that gun owners would respond by cooing about how much more "free" they are because of the new invention - though I wonder if many would respond with more than just trite grumblings........

It occured to me that you might be thinking along the lines of Mr. Ross in your argument - that though increasing government restriction is worrisome, "things are still better" when you look at the country. Though this viewpoint is relative to the speaker, it may in fact be true - but not because of anything to do with government.

Furthermore, if the last paragraph is an accurate summary of your argument, why cannot our new level of "freedom" be attributed to the Democrats as well as to the Republicans, as this freedom was gained while they played a role in the political process as well?

Finally, I was curious to see if you had any thoughts on Bush's recent government-largesse proposal concerning Medicare.

http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtmltype=politicsNews&storyID=2963415

Do you feel betrayed by this, or is this behavior not a problem since health care here is still better here than it is in Canada?

Nice to see you back!

I hate being arbitrarily clipped off by authority. Off topic… My wife and I raise exotic finches, and depend on online forums like this for information. I got shut down by the administrator on one while debating an animal rights activists. So I created my own forum, and the other administrator and I stayed friends. Later that administrator became the most prominent contributor to my forum. We became better friends, but eventually wanted me to kick off someone she had a problem with (because he started sexual relationships with two married women from the forum). I refused because he didn't break any of the rules, and I want to keep the place free. She said I had to choose between that "predator" and herself. Guess who's no longer on my forum. Guess which forum is thriving after 3 years…

I'm not sure that I understand your perspective in saying that government doesn't create or actively do anything to contribute to opportunity. I think that planning, organizing contracting, managing and regulating (POCMR) is a big contribution to wealth creation.

Your frustration with JimRob in a way illustrates the value of POCMR (a completely made up phrase). My screen-name is elfman2 because of Jim's move to end a brawl by canceling my first account. I gave this place a 10 month hiatus after that. I came back because the alternatives were less attractive. When I last visited alt.politics.objectivism it was filled with spam, automated posts from some spinoff group, trolls and profanity. (I see it's policed now.) There was little opportunity for people to start a rational public discussion like this and pick it up across several months at our convenience.

I'm only using FR to show the value of POCMR, not to draw any other parallels between Jim and Government. We could both list thousands of opportunities from which we benefit that government POCMR contributes to. If you accept POCMR's value, and you accept government's very significant role, then I don't understand how you can say they don't actively do anything to create (or contribute to) opportunity. I'm not an Objectivist BTW, just very influenced by it.

Whether or not most or all POCMR could be done more effectively and efficiently by private organizations is unproven, largely theoretical and ideological if one was to organize a set of such beliefs and insist on them. If that was your justification for saying that Government does nothing to provide opportunity, then we've circled back to my claim that the belief that freedom is synonymous with liberty (regardless of opportunity) is entirely dependent (correctly or not) on having that minority ideological perspective. And since minority opinions rarely control the language, "freedom" to Americans (even in a political sense) generally includes opportunity.

I think the gun analogy is interesting. I'm not able to follow-up and read the link at the moment, but I think that I can address it from what you wrote. Because freedom is composed of liberty and opportunity, a loss of part of one that is not compensated by a gain in the other (very roughly speaking) would result in freedom's loss. Looking at gun ownership as a microcosm of that, gun owners "may" be better off today, but they are at some risk of loosing liberty completely. (Less at risk now than before Clinton's and company's unsuccessful dash to that goal line). But back to the big picture, threats to our liberties would only be comparable to the gun issue if there were a Taliban like ideology shared by a large minority of America. 10% - 20% of American's may want all guns banned, but I'd guess that less that 1% want all liberty banned.

The link to the Medicaid story's not working, but I assume it's about prescription drugs. FWIW, Bush ran on doing this. I hope to not focus our conversation on this before doing more to resolve the above disagreement, but I need to respond a little…

The physical/financial size of government is measured by its budget compared to the GDP. It's physically impossible to grow that while enacting tax cuts. (This doesn't address the political power of government, just the physical size. I'm also not including spending freshly printed money because our government doesn't do that or other "tax-like" confiscations). I think that the administration has learned something about the Democrat MO that most of them don't even understand. That they can convince Americans to deficit spend right up to the point of insolvency, just like an man with his first credit card, and then take political credit for the purchases. The administration has decided, for better or for worse, to not fight that directly for now, to just resist it, to minimize it and to redirect it so as to rob them of the political credit while perusing tax cuts and other policies that you and I would call minimal reforms. But that's another involved discussion.

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