THE MAN WHO DESPISES AMERICA
Posted on 11/15/2009 6:59:29 AM PST by Jeff Head
What is Liberty?
Well, in my opinion, in the context of American liberty, here's an answer....
"Liberty is freedom from encumberance in an environment where the unalienable, God-given rights of mankind are both recognized and respected and where individual "Free Will" bounded by fundamental moral principle is the avenue for interaction in society."
That's a lot of pretty words that basically say that if a people are to be free, they and their government have to recognize and respect the God-given rights of others and be moral. In fact, liberty can not coexist with widespread individual, or institutional immorality. Immorality places an individual's, or a group's, wishes, lusts, cravings, passions or beliefs above the unalienable rights of others. When this occurs, unalienable rights are infringed and liberty is lost.
Liberty can also not exist where moral choice is compelled and individual Free Will is destroyed. Again, the result is that unalienable rights are infringed and liberty is lost
Either of these negative conditions, rampant immorality or rampant compulsion of moral choice, lead directly to tyranny. On one hand as society breaks down and individuals infringe on one another's rights tyranny rushes in to "restore order". On the other hand, or as a result of the first, the infringement is institutionalized as the "government" compels people in their individual choices. You decide how close we are to one or the other today.
The American path to stable, lasting liberty, which has maintained for well over two hundred years and been the beacon of liberty for the entire world, correctly enumerates all of the following unallienable rights :
- LifeThere are others and, as the Constitution clearly states, they are left to the individual states and the people. All of them derive from the Creator and are our natural rights as soveriegn individuals and are only enumerated in our Declaration of Independence and our Bill of Rights in the US Constitution.
- Liberty (meaning free will)
- The pursuit of happiness (meaning a livelihood and personal property deriving therefrom)
- Free speech
- Freedom of religion
- Freedom of association
- Freedom of Assembly
- Petition and Redress of Elected or Appointed Officials
- Self defense (uninfringed Firearms ownership)
- Secure in person and belongings
- Justice (meaning probable cause, trial by jury or peers, facing accusers, etc.)
1) Protect the borders from outside invaders who would rob the people of their liberty and all the fruits of their labors.Folks, this is Liberty ... this is what our founders envisioned and what our nation has lived out for most of its history. This knowledge is communicable and is the great antidote to our modern ills ... from cries for gun control, to social welfare systems, to intrusive taxes to rampant immorality. Some of the greatest comments on these topics were provided by our founders ... our initial great communicators. Let's punctuate this article with their words and communications on the topic, and let's catch that "communcable" spirit that they felt :
2) To insure that any infringement on the unalienable rights of others is brought to justice, as provided for in the enumeration of those rights.
3) To provide for equitable commerce between the states.
"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."- John Adams, Oct. 11, 1798 Address to the military
"Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private virtue, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics." John Adams
"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure if we have removed their only firm basis: a conviction in the minds of men that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever."- Thomas Jefferson
"And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms ... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants," Thomas Jefferson.
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."- James Madison
"We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."- James Madison
"A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy.... While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.... If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security." - Samuel Adams
"[N]either the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend of the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen onto any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man." Samuel Adams
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom...go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels nor arms. May your chains set lightly upon you and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."- Samuel Adams
"Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants."- William Penn
"Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles." Patrick Henry
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined," Patrick Henry.
"Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as Freedom should not be highly rated."- Thomas Paine; 1776
"[I]f we and our posterity reject religious instruction and authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with the injunctions of morality, and recklessly destroy the political constitution which holds us together, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us, that shall bury all our glory in profound obscurity." Daniel Webster
"They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety," Benjamin Franklin.
"No country upon earth ever had it more in its power to attain blessings. Much to be regretted indeed would it be, were we to depart from the road which Providence has pointed us to, so plainly; I cannot believe it will ever come to pass. The Great Governor of the Universe has led us too long and too far to forsake us in the midst of it. We may, now and then, get bewildered; but I hope and trust that there is good sense and virtue enough left to recover the right path. " - George Washington
The existence of persons and property preceded the existence of the legislator, and his function is only to guarantee their safety.If today, our lawmakers were interested in restoring this nation to its greatness, they would catch the vision that this land was established for soveriegn individuals, operating within the environment addressed by this essay, to govern themselves, not be governed by thousands of laws, regulations and agencies sent forth to harass the citizens and increase the power and prestige of lawmakers who ought rather to be the servants of the citizens.
It is not true that the function of law is to regulate our consciences, our ideas, our wills, our education, our opinions, our work, our trade, our talents, or our pleasures. The function of law is to protect the free excercise of these rights, and to prevent any person from interfering with the free exercise of these rights by any other person.
Since law necessarily requires the support of force, its lawful domain is only in the areas where the use of force is necessary. This is justice.
Every individual has the right to use force for lawful self-defense. It is for this reason that the collective force - which is only the organized combination of the individual forces - may lawfully be used for the same purpose; and it cannot be used legitimately for any other purpose.
Law is soley the organization of the individual right of self-defense which existed before law was formalized. Law is justice.
IMHO, we need to spread the principles of liberty to all we know, and never cease in our efforts to do so individually and as a people.
As there have been many discussions lately about Liberty, spearheaded by Jeff Head, who will come to be ranked as one of the greatest Patriots of all time, not just our own, I feel it is time to respond, after having had a few days to consider, to the basic question of what constitutes Liberty.
As always, in any discussion, the participants must agree at least on some basic definitions in order to compare and contrast their opinions. So I am inclined here to give the definition that I have maintained, a definition that at least allows us to consider "Liberty" from the same pespective, it is a basic tenet, other considerations may be (And will be!) heaped upon it, but it serves as a starting point from which the ideas may flow:
This particular definition cuts to the chase, so to speak, as it it simple and relays the basic ideas, which, to paraphrase somewhat simply, are that no one can stop you from doing something, and no one can order you to do anything.Liberty:
Freedom from restraint
No compelled performance
When one declares this type of definition, one is immediately assaulted by those who say "You can't have that!" "That's anarchy!" "What about the children?" and so on.
So let us dispense with such arguments from the onset. NONE of the great libertarian philosophers have ever confused Liberty with license. Read Jefferson, Mill, Bastiat, Franklin, and you will never find a single word that says a person's liberty can or should be used in opposition to the well being, goals, ambitions, or liberty of others. On this point, there is no variation, your freedom to punch ends where my nose begins.
Liberty, then, must be seen to mean neither anarchy nor lawlessness. Society, in general, has a need to expect conduct which will, if not benefit all, at least will not harm them. Such is the basis of society everywhere, an unspoken agreement that social order and peace are worthy causes. Yet such a need is more and more being assumed to be a power to regulate things not within the Governmental sphere or indeed even in the societal sphere.
The Price of Liberty
If your daughter decided to marry a drug addict, would you campaign for laws to prevent her?
I think this is a good example because it demonstrates the difference between Law and Society, it makes us consider that No matter what we know in truth to be the best, it is often not in our power to make it happen!
We may know the outcome, the script was written and has been played through thousands of times, yet come to it's own conclusion, it must.
And while such a scenario highlights outcomes that may seem to argue against liberty, as something fraught with danger and possible failure, it crystallizes the reasons for liberty, which are that it is the essential part of a person's life that helps him develop, mature, and determine his own destiny.
None of us are immune from making bad choices, but none of us have not, at least a few times, learned valuable lessons from those choices.The Perfect World
Imagine you wake up one morning and find all your dreams have come true! Perfect health, all the money you need, a fine house, whatever you value now as the way your life should be.
I think you would relish it very much, at least at first, but before long, I see the following:
Before the next New moon, you would start to be restless and bored.
Before the next change of season, despair would set in.
Before a year had gone by, you would be insane or suicidal.
This illustrates an undeniable need of man, not that our dreams are false, but that the getting part is at least as important as the having part. We learn from our endeavors, richness comes from our successes as well as our failures. Such is part of the master plan, which we cannot deny, and will iterate itself over and over for generations of bad first job interviews and failed marriages, and we are fools if we think we, or society, or government can change it.On Society
Society is not the collective will of man, it is his interaction with each other. John Stuart Mill, one of the greatest thinkers of all time, speaks of these issues in his essay "On Liberty". Mill was educated very properly, some would say severely, by his father. At 3 he was taught Mathematics and Latin. At 8 he was thouroughly familiar with the greek classics. At 15, he was an expert in the Roman Law. As a result of this strict regimen by his father, he became fiercely libertarian.
In his essay, Mill concedes that society sometimes has a need to make laws. Society indeed benefits from social order, as commerce, education, the arts and sciences and other aspects come to fruition.
Yet this concession is immediately followed by the warnings. The warnings are of a society that comes to think it knows what is right for the individual. He speaks of the "tyranny of the majority", a place and time where the desires of the many outweigh the rights of the one:
"Society can and does execute it's own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself."
With that in mind, we can ask whether society can impose laws. A good example here would be speed limits in school zones. These have saved lives. But when one studies these things, you soon find out that these types of "laws" are generally civil in nature, there are ways to fight them in court and win.
As far as that goes, liberty remains. I will not discuss any of the particulars about these laws for one simple reason: I don't need an eighteen year old in court after he had just run over a six year old mumbling about sovereignty and BOP's.
In a certain sense, then, it can be said that I do not follow these laws. I don't need to be told to slow down in a school zone, or threatened by terrible retribution. I do what is right, because it is right, not because it is the "law", and my liberty remains intact.
In all times and places, there will be those who through immaturity, greed, contempt, or just general mischief, will try to push the envelope of acceptable behavior. There are laws, and if you feel they apply to you, all well and good.The Terrible Teeth
We come at last to the crux of the matter, The Terrible Teeth, the crushing jaws. Government and the Law. Law is, and will remain, the most powerful tool that men or society posess. Historically, government was organized to protect the society from conquest.The greatest leaders, the victors, were often decided to have divine guidance, they were deemed to be Kings. The succession of monarchies, where people were indeed "subjects', property of the King, as much as the trees, the wheat, and the land were his property, has only recently eroded. Mill refers to this as an "age of enlightenment", in the political sense, as much an advance as the age of reason in the scientific and industrial sense.
The change came in the form of the springing up of representative democracies and republics. The role of government was finally and absolutely determined to be that of workers for the people. The government ruled with the consent of the people.It was hoped that these means would end despotism, and truly enfranchise all the people.
But these hopes are proving to be meager, if we do not pay constant attention. Government can, if it likes, run a forty ton tank through your front wall, into your dining room, and out the back wall with nothing on earth to stop it!
Government can, now, learn more about you, listen to your private communications, the list of things in it's power grows daily.
With this in mind, as the fangs sharpen, we are obligated to be very careful when we as a society demand "laws". They had better be laws that society even has an interest in, not laws to determine who we will marry. They should be laws where all other means have failed, when I was younger, people tended not to do certain things, because there would be gossip, and a healthy dose of shame.
Law should be the last resort, the terrible fangs can shread and rip and destroy.
An Example of the Worst
In the early decades of this century, if one wanted to be a scientist, you had better learn German. Germany, at it's peak, was the worldwide center of cultural and scientific achievement. But a man soon appeared, who was able to convince the German people that there was a better way, he knew the better way, and if they gave him the power, he would advance their cause. His name of course was Adolph Hitler.
The reason I bring this up is because of the following: A little study and you soon come to realize that it was not a group of extremists, left or right, that gave Hitler and the German war machine his powers. It was mainstream society, the educational establishments, the captains of industry, the elite, the cultured, in the name of socialism! Persons who objected, or thought differently, were crushed and cooked in the German war machine, commodities for the Krupps, less than human.
This example serves as a reminder of the outcome where a society completely forgets about the liberties of man. You can bet that German ideaologies at the time were as perfectly synchronized and in lockstep as the marches of the German infantry. It shows a society gone mad, and the failure of the government being involved in areas that are most properly determined by society or the individual person. We are well reminded, then, that our afairs with each other, and with other nations, are indeed our affairs, not governments, government is representative of the people.Morality
Jeff's essay properly asked about morality and government. In this matter, I think there are two distinct parts:
Should government be made up of moral people?
Should government enforce our morality?
My answer to the first is an unqualified YES!
Due to the terrible teeth, the ripping fangs of government, there is no room in it for those who would act in an immoral fashion. Bribery, corruption, influence peddling will always rear their ugly heads, but to allow it in government, which has power and fury almost indescribable, is a recipe for disaster and death.
My answer to the second is No!. Morality, ethics, our interpersonal relationships, our bedrooms, our schools and churches are not something we want government addressing. And it is fundamentally opposed to what the founders wanted and wrote about in the Declaration, That "men are endowed (by heaven) with certain unalienable rights,... and to secure these rights, governments are instituted". This statement in actual fact and proper reading shows that government becomes an agent not of men, but is supposed to be doing the work of heaven above itself! A lofty goal indeed.In Conclusion
Liberty is the natural and most lofty state of man. Our chance to grow, to choose our hobbies, our occupations, our mates, our destinies can only reach their proper conclusion in the air of liberty. So I will close by quoting from Frederik Bastiat's "The Law", a piece written about 1850, in response to the growing socialist movement in post-revolutionary France:The desire to rule over others
My attitude toward all other persons is well illustrated by this story from a celebrated traveler: He arrived one day in the midst of a tribe of savages, where a child had been born. A crowd of soothsayers, magicians, and quacks - armed with rings, hooks, and cords surrounded it. One said: "This child will never smell the perfume of a peace pipe unless I stretch his nostrils." Another said: "He will never be able to hear unless I draw his earlobes down to his shoulders." A third said "He will never see sunshine unless I slant his eyes." Another said: "He will never stand upright unless I bend his legs." A fifth said: "He will never learn to think unless I flatten his head." "Stop!" cried the traveler. "What God does is well done. Do not claim to know more than He. God has given organs to this frail creature; let them develop and grow by exercise, use, experience, and liberty."
Let us Now Try Liberty
God has given to men all that is necessary for them to accomplish their destinies. He has provided a social form as well as a human form. And these social organs of persons are so constituted that they will develop themselves harmoniously in the clean air of Liberty. Away, then with quacks and organizers! Away with their rings, chains, hooks, and pincers! Away with the whims of governmental administrators, their socialized projects, their centralization, their tariffs, their governmental schools, their state religions, their free credit, their bank monopolies, their restrictions, their equalization by taxation, and their pious moralizations!
And now that the legislator and do-gooders have so futiley inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty; for liberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works.
God bless,
in peace and liberty,
djf
November, 1998
IMHO, it is something we here on FR need to do more of, like we used to.
Our efforts in terms of activism are critical and have made a difference and will continue to do so.
Our efforts in terms of education can be no less strenuous or maintained...and will make just as much a difference.
I remember.
A lot of good vanities and essays, some fine writers. OWK comes to mind, among others.
Quite a few disappeared over the immigration wars and election fracases - too bad, but I imagine most still have the same ideas, they’re just hanging out somewhere else.
If I were to complain anything about FR, I would say too much is simple one-liner drive by posting type stuff.
Can anyone define the “in a nutshell” difference between liberty and freedom?
Ok?...So?...What's the plan for educating our nation's children. I hope this author and other conservatives are not going to suggest "taking back" the government schools.
We are in the fix we are in precisely because children from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s have attended socialist government schools!
Every day that a child attends a government school he learns to be comfortable with government taking money from his neighbor to pay for something his parents want for FREE! Do this for 1 to 3 or more generations and citizens are soon very comfortable with the IRS, FDR's New Deal, Johnson's Great Society, and now, Obama!
If conservatives want to fix this problem of educating our nation's youth in the principles of freedom they MUST, MUST, MUST, give up the idea that socialist government schools can be reformed! IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO REFORM SOCIALISM!
Harvard has a 35 BILLION dollar endowment. Colleges and universities and other Marxist philanthropies across this nation have endowments in the BILLIONS...and...a lot of that money came from stupid conservative donors. Stop doing this! Now!
Instead, conservatives must set up education foundations that would award grants to conservative teachers. The teachers would set up one room school houses, mini-schools, or homeschool co-ops. The foundations would certify the teacher, test the students, and approve the curriculum. The foundations would run larger "socialization" programs such as team sports leagues, theater, cheer leading, orchestras, and bands.
If people can run day care centers in their homes or small buildings surely they could run one room school houses. It would greatly cut the expense of educating our nation's children. Yes, conservatives do have the means to offer a truly conservative education to every child in this nation ( and possibly even the world!)
At the same time, the foundations should organize the parents to resist school taxes and to work for the complete shut down of our socialist government schools. Every one of them needs to be closed. Permanently!
If our Founding Father could see the monstrosity of our socialist model government schools they would be horrified. They would have written in our federal and state constitutions that their must be complete separation of SCHOOL and state.
pmub
Beautiful essay.
As some people define it, I would say liberty has more of a a connotation of the underlying moral principles that allow libery to be maintained and bless the life of those exercising it. Meaning that by exercising our own moral restraint based on fundamental moral principle, we live at peace with others and do not violate their God-given unalienable rights.
Freedom to some, may have a connoatation that does not include that moral component.
Either way, liberty and freedom in the traditional and historic American sense cannot be maintained without morality that undergirds it...and the population, the citizenry adopting individual moral restraint as a free-will choice.
Thanks.
My life was quite different back then, before my wife passed, I was very happily married to a stunning woman who adored me, we had alot of plans for the future.
I was inspired.
Alot more mundane these days...
Bump!
Thanks for the ping.
So true, djf! Academe was particularly complicit. But I don't think it was necessarily in the name of socialism. Eric Vöegelin reports the run-up to Hilter as a time of great cultural uncertainty, very largely due to a loss of confidence in the old order of the world (i.e., a world under God's laws) and the pressures of having to fill the ensuing void out of the stock of the Enlightenment and the scientific revolution. It was an age of enormous preoccupation with psychology, and according to Robert Musil, an age oddly given to mysticism and the conjuring of second realities. Socialism would be but one of them; nationalism was another hot button; and so was anti-semitism.
From the turn of the century, there had been increasing mass cultural and moral confusion in Germany; the "center no longer held." "Everyone" expected "something" was "going to happen" (according to Vöegelin); but nobody knew exactly what. There was moreover an increasingly general longing for a "Leader" who could "restore order" to the general chaos, well exacerbated by massive hyperinflation during the Weimar period.
I do believe the above is an good description of the mass psychology that ultimately found its "champion" in Hitler.
I also think there is much in American culture and society today that resembles the described scenario.
How all this turns out, I don't know: I'm just "waiting for the other shoe to drop." I guess the outcome will depend on how many "We the People" — who ordained and established the Constitution to secure the blessings of Liberty for themselves and their posterity — are still left in this nation.
If the fire of liberty no longer burns, then there's nothing to stop the total deconstruction of America by Obama and his minions. Meanwhile, his disasters domestic and international continue to pile up, one after another, seemingly with no relief in sight....
Not exactly cheery news; but I do believe it's truthful.
Thank you for posting your fine article, djf!
Yep....However, you can be reassured that the broad swath of our benevolent government agencies will leave no stone unturned in their efforts to immunize all its citizens against the spread of this scourge!
Good question!
I googled it and there's lots to read, much of it over intellectualized but worth reading. This is the best and most succinct IMHO.
Freedom & Liberty: http://www.naciente.com/essay36.htm
Author’s website: http://www.naciente.com/hartman.htm
very good
Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dearest sister in Christ!
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