ze avatar *
It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.
- Theodore Roosevelt
I hope that no one will claim to know the final answers; no good comes from prophets. But even when acknowledging our falibility, we must nevertheless continue to think about these matters and give the advice to others that intellect and conscience dictate. And let God be our judge, as our grandparents used to say. - Sakharov
Baka ni tsukeru kusuriwa nai (There's no medicine to cure stupidity) - an old Japanese Proverb
|
Home  Blog Archive Ramblings Democracy isn't Freedom
|
Wednesday, 20 July 2005 |
By Rep. Ron Paul, MD | February 7 2005
“…man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause
and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As
government expands, liberty contracts.”
~ Ronald Reagan
We’ve all heard the words democracy and freedom used countless times,
especially in the context of our invasion of Iraq. They are used
interchangeably in modern political discourse, yet their true meanings
are very different.
George Orwell wrote about “meaningless words” that are endlessly
repeated in the political arena.* Words like “freedom,” “democracy,”
and “justice,” Orwell explained, have been abused so long that their
original meanings have been eviscerated. In Orwell’s view, political
words were “Often used in a consciously dishonest way.” Without precise
meanings behind words, politicians and elites can obscure reality and
condition people to reflexively associate certain words with positive
or negative perceptions. In other words, unpleasant facts can be hidden
behind purposely meaningless language. As a result, Americans have been
conditioned to accept the word “democracy” as a synonym for freedom,
and thus to believe that democracy is unquestionably good.
The problem is that democracy is not freedom. Democracy is simply
majoritarianism, which is inherently incompatible with real freedom.
Our founding fathers clearly understood this, as evidenced not only by
our republican constitutional system, but also by their writings in the
Federalist Papers and elsewhere. James Madison cautioned that under a
democratic government, “There is nothing to check the inducement to
sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual.” John Adams
argued that democracies merely grant revocable rights to citizens
depending on the whims of the masses, while a republic exists to secure
and protect pre-existing rights. Yet how many Americans know that the
word “democracy” is found neither in the Constitution nor the
Declaration of Independence, our very founding documents?
A truly democratic election in Iraq, without U.S. interference and U.S.
puppet candidates, almost certainly would result in the creation of a
Shiite theocracy. Shiite majority rule in Iraq might well mean the
complete political, economic, and social subjugation of the minority
Kurd and Sunni Arab populations. Such an outcome would be democratic,
but would it be free? Would the Kurds and Sunnis consider themselves
free? The administration talks about democracy in Iraq, but is it
prepared to accept a democratically-elected Iraqi government no matter
what its attitude toward the U.S. occupation? Hardly. For all our talk
about freedom and democracy, the truth is we have no idea whether
Iraqis will be free in the future. They’re certainly not free while a
foreign army occupies their country. The real test is not whether Iraq
adopts a democratic, pro-western government, but rather whether
ordinary Iraqis can lead their personal, religious, social, and
business lives without interference from government.
Simply put, freedom is the absence of government coercion. Our Founding
Fathers understood this, and created the least coercive government in
the history of the world. The Constitution established a very limited,
decentralized government to provide national defense and little else.
States, not the federal government, were charged with protecting
individuals against criminal force and fraud. For the first time, a
government was created solely to protect the rights, liberties, and
property of its citizens. Any government coercion beyond that necessary
to secure those rights was forbidden, both through the Bill of Rights
and the doctrine of strictly enumerated powers. This reflected the
founders’ belief that democratic government could be as tyrannical as
any King.
Few Americans understand that all government action is inherently
coercive. If nothing else, government action requires taxes. If taxes
were freely paid, they wouldn’t be called taxes, they’d be called
donations. If we intend to use the word freedom in an honest way, we
should have the simple integrity to give it real meaning: Freedom is
living without government coercion. So when a politician talks about
freedom for this group or that, ask yourself whether he is advocating
more government action or less.
The political left equates freedom with liberation from material wants,
always via a large and benevolent government that exists to create
equality on earth. To modern liberals, men are free only when the laws
of economics and scarcity are suspended, the landlord is rebuffed, the
doctor presents no bill, and groceries are given away. But philosopher
Ayn Rand (and many others before her) demolished this argument by
explaining how such “freedom” for some is possible only when government
takes freedoms away from others. In other words, government claims on
the lives and property of those who are expected to provide housing,
medical care, food, etc. for others are coercive – and thus
incompatible with freedom. “Liberalism,” which once stood for civil,
political, and economic liberties, has become a synonym for omnipotent
coercive government.
The political right equates freedom with national greatness brought
about through military strength. Like the left, modern conservatives
favor an all-powerful central state – but for militarism, corporatism,
and faith-based welfarism. Unlike the Taft-Goldwater conservatives of
yesteryear, today’s Republicans are eager to expand government
spending, increase the federal police apparatus, and intervene
militarily around the world. The last tenuous links between
conservatives and support for smaller government have been severed.
“Conservatism,” which once meant respect for tradition and distrust of
active government, has transformed into big-government utopian
grandiosity.
Orwell certainly was right about the use of meaningless words in
politics. If we hope to remain free, we must cut through the fog and
attach concrete meanings to the words politicians use to deceive us. We
must reassert that America is a republic, not a democracy, and remind
ourselves that the Constitution places limits on government that no
majority can overrule. We must resist any use of the word “freedom” to
describe state action. We must reject the current meaningless
designations of “liberals” and “conservatives,” in favor of an accurate
term for both: statists.
Every politician on earth claims to support freedom. The problem is so few of them understand the simple meaning of the word." |
|
