Posted on 03/29/2002 4:05:29 PM PST by GalvestonBeachcomber
What A Free Society Really Is Some guy accused me of advocating socialism the other day. The density of the matter — whatever it is — between the ears of some people who call themselves conservatives rivals that of a black hole.
Let me tell you what a free society is. In a free society, you pay your medical bills out of your pocket or you don't get any health care. You pay for your own education, and that of your children, out of your own pocket. If you don't have a job, you scrounge or sponge or steal or starve until you find one. You provide for your own retirement or you get old and poor. In a free society there is no welfare, no public education, no workers' compensation, no unemployment compensation, no Medicaid, no Medicare, no subsidies and no Social Security.
That's why a free society is the last damned thing most Americans today want, including those who label themselves conservatives. They are already armpit-deep in socialism and don't have the brains to realize it. Talk of a free society in terms of laissez-faire economics is irrelevant. It's not on anybody's agenda except for my friends at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. You would think that even the dimmest light bulb would realize that during the past 50 years, no matter who has been elected — Republicans or Democrats, so-called conservatives or liberals — governments at all levels have gotten bigger and bigger and bigger.
I don't want to put a strain on anyone's IQ, but a large government that takes 50 cents of every dollar earned makes a free society impossible. What we have is a semi-free, semi-socialistic society that is moving ever toward less freedom and more government control. When you have two presidential candidates debating which of them can provide more government services, that should give even a fool a hint that a free economy and individual liberty are not on either party's radarscopes. The difference today between Democrats and Republicans is the difference between the financial backers each party wishes to reward. Out of 535 members of the House and Senate, I doubt if you could find 50 who are ideologically either left or right. Most of them are just opportunists who wouldn't know a political philosophy if one crawled in bed with them.
Most Americans today don't know how to live free. Our ancestors did, but most of us don't. Look at how many Americans never even exercise the rights they still have left. Look at how easily cowed they are by political correctness. Look at how eager they are to trade liberty for security. Look at how gullible they are in swallowing all the platitudes, bromides, cants and clichés their politicians feed them.
When Lithuania was still under complete control of the Soviet Union, a little girl came home sobbing. Her communist teacher had stood her up before her classmates and viciously ridiculed her Christian beliefs. Her mother had no rights at all. She was totally at the mercy of the government. But that brave mother marched down to the Communist Party headquarters and gave a tongue-lashing to every communist bureaucrat within hearing. Now that's living free.
The KGB ordered Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to stay away from the funeral of a literary friend. Solzhenitsyn went to the funeral, and he walked down the aisle to the open casket and kissed his friend's forehead. How many Americans have the guts to tell FBI agents if they came to the door: "Unless you have a warrant, go away. I don't wish to talk to you." Damned few, I suspect.
No terrorist on Earth can take away our liberties, but we can give them away if we act like sheep when politicians want to use the excuse of terrorism to dismantle what's left of the Constitution.
Perhaps we'd all better just practice living as free people, at least for a few weeks, just to get a feel for it. You know what I mean: Speak up and out, assemble, petition, practice our religion and defend our right to do so, pack a gun, serve on a jury, insist that the government respect all of the Bill of Rights and apply it to everybody, citizen or not, within our boundaries.
Then, when we have relearned how to live as free and self-reliant people, we can worry about socialism. And, by the way, raising the minimum wage is no more or less socialistic than corporate subsidies and tax breaks for the rich.
Sad but true. To carry it further:
"There is none more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free!"
-- Johann W. von Goethe
A Republic...if you can keep it.
Thanks for the post.
J.R.
A free society sounds pretty great to me. With very few taxes we can all afford all the things he listed (hint---we pay for them anyway with a lot of waste by government involved). He exaggerates though because a free society can still have health insurance and most people would probably choose to have it ---especially if there was no Medicaid to fall back on.
Ditto with my copy of Shakedown.
T
True. That's the elephant in the living room, isn't it? We're going to pay a terrible price to restore the Republic.
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