Freedom vs. Fairness
Stress has been high these last few days – I’m preparing a PR event for work, and I was stupid enough to give out my own cell number as the RSVP line. Which means I’ve been inundated with phone calls, and I haven’t been able to breathe. The event is on Friday, which means the calls end on Friday, too, hopefully.
I anxiously await the arrival of freedom.
Which leads me to our topic today, boys and girls, which is the aforementioned freedom thingie. Whereas tolerance is overrated, freedom is vastly underrated. And a large chunk of the electorate neither knows nor cares what it is.
Let’s begin with the basic assumption at the root of our nation’s founding. Freedom is an inherent right, one granted by God, not government. When government gets in the way, it’s time to get a new government. I’m not as poetic as Thomas Jefferson, but I think the paraphrase is accurate.
Every minute of every day, you have the freedom to make choices. For instance, right now I’m choosing to write a blog entry instead of ANSWERING THAT DAMN PHONE… which is, of course, ringing even as we speak. However, by choosing to do this, I have also chosen the consequences – I’m going to have to clear out my voicemail again – I only have eighteen messages before it fills up – and this will likely add to the stress of my day. Of course, I could blow off the phone calls entirely, which would likely mean I lose my job. But I chose those consequences when I took the job. I also like the consequence of getting paid, and this seemed to be the best course of action I was free to take to get the big bucks.
So as much as I moan and whine about how much things suck at the moment – STOP RINGING, PHONE! – I chose this. I was free to do so, and I did it. I would like to be starring on American Idol instead, or playing James Bond in the next 007 movie, or collecting endorsement deals for my eight Olympic gold medals, but those choices aren’t available to me. I’m too old and too lousy to be on American Idol; too ugly and unknown to be James Bond; too flabby and bong free to be Michael Phelps. Freedom and opportunity are not necessarily the same thing.
Or, to put it another way, freedom doesn’t make life fair.
As a nation, we keep thinking fairness and freedom are the same thing. They’re not. They’re antithetical. In order to make your life just as nifty as someone else’s, government yanks away some of their freedom to provide you with fairness. So Obama’s stimulus plan gives “tax rebates” to people who don’t pay taxes. He’s putting us a trillion more dollars in debt to “stimulate the economy” at the expense of your freedom. Every resource the government confiscates to fuel its activity is a resource you’re no longer free to manage.
Nobody seems to think of it in these terms anymore.
Instead, they point out all the great things the government is doing with your money. And how unfair it is that rich people make so much and poor people get so little, and what are you, heartless? Many even invoke religious principles to justify the encroachment of government on your liberty. After all, Christ gave to the poor, didn’t he? Aren’t we supposed to do what Christ does?
I read a letter to the editor to this effect in the Deseret News yesterday. “As an LDS member who often votes Democratic,” the guy says, “I do so because I believe those with much have a mandate to help those with little.” As a guy who never votes Democratic, I can’t agree with this more. Yet the Democrats - and way too many Republicans - refuse to allow me the freedom to help others. They take my resources and distribute them as they see fit, and they do so at the point of a gun. I am not free to resist, unless I want to go to jail for tax evasion. I don’t get to choose how the money is spent, and I have less money of my own to direct to the people and programs I believe in. How is that fulfilling Christ’s mission? When did Christ confiscate someone else’s property against their will?
People prefer fairness because fairness is tidy and neat. Freedom is messy. Freedom means people can be jerks and spend their money on season tickets to minor league hockey games instead of giving it to the food bank. Freedom means people who look like Brad Pitt will get Oscar nominations and people who look like Stallion Cornell can only write catty, jealous blog comments about it. Freedom means disappointment and frustration when things don’t go as you planned, which is more often than not. It’s no wonder, then, that people want to trade in freedom for fairness.
Folks, I’m telling you, it’s not a good deal.
All over the world, people have made the exchange, and the standard of living for everyone has gone down as a result. I’d rather make fifty grand a year and have my neighbor make a hundred than have both of us make twenty-five. I don’t think someone else’s success limits my freedom. I do think that a government that piles on the debt is putting me in bondage with the best of intentions. That’s something it has no right to do.
In the course of writing this, I’ve gotten twelve new voicemail messages. Shoot me now.
I anxiously await the arrival of freedom.
Which leads me to our topic today, boys and girls, which is the aforementioned freedom thingie. Whereas tolerance is overrated, freedom is vastly underrated. And a large chunk of the electorate neither knows nor cares what it is.
Let’s begin with the basic assumption at the root of our nation’s founding. Freedom is an inherent right, one granted by God, not government. When government gets in the way, it’s time to get a new government. I’m not as poetic as Thomas Jefferson, but I think the paraphrase is accurate.
Every minute of every day, you have the freedom to make choices. For instance, right now I’m choosing to write a blog entry instead of ANSWERING THAT DAMN PHONE… which is, of course, ringing even as we speak. However, by choosing to do this, I have also chosen the consequences – I’m going to have to clear out my voicemail again – I only have eighteen messages before it fills up – and this will likely add to the stress of my day. Of course, I could blow off the phone calls entirely, which would likely mean I lose my job. But I chose those consequences when I took the job. I also like the consequence of getting paid, and this seemed to be the best course of action I was free to take to get the big bucks.
So as much as I moan and whine about how much things suck at the moment – STOP RINGING, PHONE! – I chose this. I was free to do so, and I did it. I would like to be starring on American Idol instead, or playing James Bond in the next 007 movie, or collecting endorsement deals for my eight Olympic gold medals, but those choices aren’t available to me. I’m too old and too lousy to be on American Idol; too ugly and unknown to be James Bond; too flabby and bong free to be Michael Phelps. Freedom and opportunity are not necessarily the same thing.
Or, to put it another way, freedom doesn’t make life fair.
As a nation, we keep thinking fairness and freedom are the same thing. They’re not. They’re antithetical. In order to make your life just as nifty as someone else’s, government yanks away some of their freedom to provide you with fairness. So Obama’s stimulus plan gives “tax rebates” to people who don’t pay taxes. He’s putting us a trillion more dollars in debt to “stimulate the economy” at the expense of your freedom. Every resource the government confiscates to fuel its activity is a resource you’re no longer free to manage.
Nobody seems to think of it in these terms anymore.
Instead, they point out all the great things the government is doing with your money. And how unfair it is that rich people make so much and poor people get so little, and what are you, heartless? Many even invoke religious principles to justify the encroachment of government on your liberty. After all, Christ gave to the poor, didn’t he? Aren’t we supposed to do what Christ does?
I read a letter to the editor to this effect in the Deseret News yesterday. “As an LDS member who often votes Democratic,” the guy says, “I do so because I believe those with much have a mandate to help those with little.” As a guy who never votes Democratic, I can’t agree with this more. Yet the Democrats - and way too many Republicans - refuse to allow me the freedom to help others. They take my resources and distribute them as they see fit, and they do so at the point of a gun. I am not free to resist, unless I want to go to jail for tax evasion. I don’t get to choose how the money is spent, and I have less money of my own to direct to the people and programs I believe in. How is that fulfilling Christ’s mission? When did Christ confiscate someone else’s property against their will?
People prefer fairness because fairness is tidy and neat. Freedom is messy. Freedom means people can be jerks and spend their money on season tickets to minor league hockey games instead of giving it to the food bank. Freedom means people who look like Brad Pitt will get Oscar nominations and people who look like Stallion Cornell can only write catty, jealous blog comments about it. Freedom means disappointment and frustration when things don’t go as you planned, which is more often than not. It’s no wonder, then, that people want to trade in freedom for fairness.
Folks, I’m telling you, it’s not a good deal.
All over the world, people have made the exchange, and the standard of living for everyone has gone down as a result. I’d rather make fifty grand a year and have my neighbor make a hundred than have both of us make twenty-five. I don’t think someone else’s success limits my freedom. I do think that a government that piles on the debt is putting me in bondage with the best of intentions. That’s something it has no right to do.
In the course of writing this, I’ve gotten twelve new voicemail messages. Shoot me now.
posted by Elder Samuel Bennett | 2:20 PM
16 Comments:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE (emphasis added), and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Yes.
The General Welfare suffers when freedom is absent.
Incidentally, I wrote a better version of this entry last year.
http://www.stallioncornell.com/2008/08/free-country.html
I should probably read my own stuff before spewing off at the mouth.
You can bemoan socio-economic fairness all you like, but if our communities are to sustain restorative social justice, then we must progress towards dynamic oversight programs to empower our diverse multicultural disenfranchised.
The ideology of hatemongering imperialist misogynists who spread colonialism with their vitriolic venom should not be allowed to halt a renewable transformative collective.
I don't want my community to sustain restorative social justice. I'd rather be free, thank you very much.
That looks like computer-generated gobbledygook.
It's what activist wackos are teaching in Sociology 101.
I thought we were an autonomous collective.
Promote != Provide.
...Stallion Cornell can only write catty, jealous blog comments...
you left out "facetious"
Once you factor in the natural corruptibility of human nature, you find that government programs do not increase fairness. They often decrease it. Instead of an aristocracy of merit, birth or money, you have what Ayn Rand* called an aristocracy of pull. You get ahead based on who you know. Rules get waived, subsidies are passed on or, you get sent to the head of the line if you're chummy with the right senator or cabinet member.
You can find plenty of examples of this in Obama's Cabinet picks. Try to get away with dodging taxes like they did and see what happens. It'll be more unpleasant than losing a cabinet seat, I guarantee you.
Also, look at the ne plus ultra of equalitarian societies: the communist state. Despite all the lip service, it featured an aristocracy as exclusive, arbitrary and cruel than anything found in the darkest of the Dark Ages.
*I'm not a Randian, myself, though I think her Atlas Shrugged is worth the slog.
I can grasp the freedom = equality issue is a challenge. There rest is debatable.
"Let’s begin with the basic assumption at the root of our nation’s founding"
This is inaccurate. Freedom was for white males and don’t you dare forget that when you propagate a mythical history.
"All over the world, people have made the exchange, and the standard of living for everyone has gone down as a result."
This is contestable. Check out the GDP per capita listings even from the CIA. Unsurprisingly, the top 10 - the US is ranked 10th. Small countries with banking backgrounds hiding money are the competition. The others are small European countries with redistributive systems.
In fact looking at the listing - there is little difference, about 3000 USD, between most European countries which embrace mixed economy and higher tax burden (a bit like the current mixed economy which is presented as a bail-out in the US) but provide health care, schooling, university, pensions and employment protection.
It all depends on what you see the function of the state to be - to make money or to ensure equitable society with high levels of social cohesion and low levels of violence.
You cannot afford to neglect the link between the creation of government as an entity to ensure autonomy and low levels of violence in societies that do redistribute. Murder rates for European countries average 1k per annum for around 60m compared to the US with 17k murders for 300m. There is an obvious concern. Also the UN reporting rates is of interest as the US only reports assaults crime which involve a firearm or end in serious bodily injury; other countries classify emotional or abusive assaults ( shouting in the street) as an assault. This is an “apple and pears” comparison but the intent behind the logic of report compilation is telling.
Is economic freedom the be all and end all of all of government?
Abbot
Economic freedom is not the end all be all, but it is an essential component of freedom. How can one be free if one can't decide what to do with one's own stuff? Our money represents our time, so by allocating our money for us, the government enslaves us for a period. Some of that is necessary (e.g. national defense), but needs to be kept to a minimum. 37% of GDP is not minimum.
Harvard, I think it was, did a study that demonstrates our odd reverence to "fairness." In the test cases, there would be a group of 2 people and $50. The first person got to divide the $50 between the 2, and the second person got to say if the deal went through. So, person 1 could say, "I get $45, and you get $5," to which person 2 could say "no" and no one would get anything, or "yes" and person 1 would get $45 and person 2 would get $5.
It turns out that if the money was divided unequally, most #2's said no. They didn't see that they were getting $5 they didn't have before, they only saw that person 1 got more than they did.
And so it is with redistributive government.
This is inaccurate. Freedom was for white males and don’t you dare forget that when you propagate a mythical history.
If you're going down this path, then you need to take into account the full historical circumstance. The split was not from a country that accorded full civil rights to women and minorities. Great Britain still engaged in the slave trade and denied women the franchise. In that light, it represented a step forward, and it presented an ideal, which by definition is never really met.
I say this, too, as something of a skeptic of the American Revolution.
In fact looking at the listing - there is little difference, about 3000 USD, between most European countries which embrace mixed economy and higher tax burden...
Well, looking at the list, the closest country to the U.S. in terms of population is the UK, and it's about $11,000 less.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html
Crimewise, Europe is definitely better off, but that can be explained by demographic factors. We have a far more mixed population, and a population that has many more poor people fresh from the Third World, as we share an embarrassingly open border with Mexico. The rates in Europe are starting to go up in areas where immigration is approaching U.S. numbers, you'll note.
Too, most of our crime takes place in limited urban areas that are either overwhelmingly black or Hispanic, and these areas suffer from pathologies created by about three generations worth of government "help", which has fostered incredible rates of bastardy.
Still, given the demographic trends, I think your vision is more likely to win, as the folks we're importing are more congenial to government programs than native-born whites.
I forgot to add the phrases "equitable society" and "social cohesion" to my computer generated gobbledygook.
Abbot,
It's very important to understand that your assertions are incorrect.
This is inaccurate. Freedom was for white males and don’t you dare forget that when you propagate a mythical history.
What you are doing here is incorrectly applying 21st century Liberal philosophy to the Founding Fathers who were only a century removed from the birth of the Age of Enlightenment. You are removing the men from the time in which they lived. This would be like expecting that those who grew up being taught the Ptolemaic system their whole lives to have immediately embraced the Copernican universe without question. Maturity develops over a period of time, not with the flip of a switch.
Many of the Founders were opposed to slavery and wanted to see it abolished, Jefferson among them. However many of the Founders also recognized that many states would not have supported the Philadelphia Convention, thus rather than having a strong central nation, there would be 13 separate states which may have lost their independence and sovereignty during the War of 1812, perhaps earlier.
It was impossible to expect the masses to make the leaps into enlightenment that many of the Founders would have liked, but they had to begin somewhere.
It's likely that had the Revolution not occurred and a Constitution drafted, that not only would women and ethnic peoples never had been allowed to vote, but the concept of slavery as being bad may never have taken hold.
The only mythical history that is present is the revisionist history that is currently being incorrectly taught in colleges by wacko activist professors.
The kinds of sentiments you express, betray the fact that within 20 years, probably less, your side of the isle will demand that the Constitution be rewritten to reflect the fantasy based liberal political philosophy.
This is deeply unfortunate because it will force humanity to relearn the lessons the Founding Fathers learned for us about government over 200 years ago, so that we wouldn't have to.
It appears that your philosophy demands to relearn those lessons all over again.
This is contestable. Check out the GDP per capita listings even from the CIA. Unsurprisingly, the top 10 - the US is ranked 10th. Small countries with banking backgrounds hiding money are the competition. The others are small European countries with redistributive systems.
Unsurprisingly, these small countries are 2nd rate powers with 2nd rate standards of living. Many of the students who receive "free" education from some of the more heavily tax burdened European nations, flee upon graduation to neighboring countries to escape that excessive taxation, thus completely negating one of the stated purposes for such high taxation.
In fact looking at the listing - there is little difference, about 3000 USD, between most European countries which embrace mixed economy and higher tax burden (a bit like the current mixed economy which is presented as a bail-out in the US) but provide health care, schooling, university, pensions and employment protection.
Adventures in socialized health care are well known to reflect a Logan's Run type of scenario. Where the equivalent of a Cliff Claven postal worker decides what treatments are appropriate for which patients, rather than the patient and the doctor deciding for themselves.
With all of the multi million dollar celebrities, and well do to politicians who can afford health care anywhere in the world, espousing the wonders of socialized medicine, why are none of them flying to Europe for their own health care?
Government run education is a disaster, as we have seen in our own country. It's become little more than a political indoctrination camp, where wacko activist professors teach students what to think, as opposed to how to think. Sociology has become nothing more than Liberal Philosophy 101. It's no coincidence, that leftist control over schools and declining graduate competency walk hand in hand. Just as with the appropriate separation of church and state, there ought to be a separation of education and state as well.
The best thing government can do to protect employment is to not interfere with the private sector. Detroit is often touted as the most liberal city in the nation; it's also no wonder that it is simultaneously an unlivable hell hole. It's simple logic, the more money that government steals from the private sector, the less money the private sector has to hire employees. How does income get redistributed? Employers pay employees. This is easier to do, when government isn't pick-pocketing the private sector.
You cannot afford to neglect the link between the creation of government as an entity to ensure autonomy and low levels of violence in societies that do redistribute. Murder rates for European countries average 1k per annum for around 60m compared to the US with 17k murders for 300m. There is an obvious concern. Also the UN reporting rates is of interest as the US only reports assaults crime which involve a firearm or end in serious bodily injury; other countries classify emotional or abusive assaults ( shouting in the street) as an assault. This is an “apple and pears” comparison but the intent behind the logic of report compilation is telling.
It's very important to understand that it is unwise to look to the UN for reliable data. The UN has it's own agenda separate from America's. It is not above cooking books, in fact it has been often known to support corruption on a global scale. The world would be better off with its dissolution.
The notion that shouting in the street constitutes an assault is silly at best, dangerous at worst. If this were the case, then all of Sarah Palin's protestors should have been rounded up. Fortunately this isn't the case for the sake of free speech. But how long this can be “sustained” is uncertain, as the left is far more unwilling to tolerate the expression of opposing points of view. The American left has made a lifestyle out of the protest, reducing it to more of a fashion statement than an act of social conscience. It’s not something that the American leftist culture could do without in my opinion. What happens when they begin marching, and are arrested for assaulting folks with their chanting and shouting?
What we learn from the long sad history of redistributive systems such as socialism is that it represents the infomercial product of governmental forms.
It advertises wonderful utopian things and fabulous free door prizes.
But just like that Shamwow, when you actually get the product home and try to put it to use, it never lives up to the advertisement.
When a snake oil socialist salesman offers to solve all of your worldly woes and injustices, it's wise to remember what many of our parent's told us, "If it sounds to good to be true, that's because it is."
Socialism, is one of the things that many immigrants came to America to escape from.
Remember, no one is hopping barded wire fences, setting out to see in a raft made from pallets, and braving fire from border security, to get into Europe.
In fact, when the Berlin wall was still up, many were shot for attempting to escape the kinds of policies that you support.
The only mythical history that is present is the revisionist history that is currently being incorrectly taught in colleges by wacko activist professors.
Much like the right-wing revisionist bullshit spewed out by rabid neocon talk-show hosts and neocon think tanks/PNAC stooges that you Stallion Cornell listen to all of the time. Not much of a difference there. If that's the sum of your education, then I'd say that you need to go back to school.
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