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2007: Prospects for Liberty (Part II)
Continuing my annual New Year’s essay on the prospects for liberty this year, I will examine some more aspects of liberty and the threats they face. As I noted in Part I, although liberty is a single, fundamental, natural right of individuals, it may be viewed in terms of an infinite number of facets. (This essay focuses on just a few, those that, to me, are the most important and the most endangered today.) Similarly, the basic enemy of individual liberty – collectivism – also has many facets. Both the aspects of liberty and the threats they face necessarily will overlap with one another. And as I maintained in Part I, although there is room for optimism about freedom’s future, for the most part there are challenges to liberty on virtually all fronts which are as great as, if not greater than, the challenges freedom-loving individuals have faced throughout human history.
Freedom to Exploit Resources vs. Radical Environmentalism
Although radical environmentalists like to juxtapose humanity with nature – regarding humans and their activities as not only separate from, but also dangerous to, the “natural” Earth – the truth is that humans are a part of nature. Indeed, it could be argued – as philosophers did in the 18th and 19th centuries – that man’s purpose is to manipulate (literally) nature, as human beings have been doing for tens of thousands of years. (Human manipulation of the environment did not suddenly originate with the Industrial Revolution; primitive tribesmen, for example, cut trees and burned fields to make room for crops or to make it easier to hunt.) Because human beings are natural to Earth, too, their exploitation of the Earth’s resources is equally natural – and yet another part of the basic right to liberty that all humans ought to enjoy. Like other aspects of liberty, the freedom to exploit resources is properly limited to actions that don’t violate other persons’ rights – hence, it can be argued, a factory owner has no legitimate “right” to spew toxic substances into other persons’ air or water supplies – but it’s not properly limited by concerns over so-called “animal rights” (animals have no rights; it’s a concept properly applied only to human beings), or by knee-jerk “preservationism” (putting certain lands off limits to human uses), or by pseudo-scientific myths (such as the theory that human activities cause destructive “global warming” or climate change). (Thus, such things as the Endangered Species Act, federal laws preserving “wetlands” from development, or the kind of draconian laws that would be necessary to implement the protocols of the Kyoto international treaty – all of them are unjustified infringements of this important aspect of our right to liberty.) Many radical environmentalists have a hidden agenda that is, quite frankly, anti-human: it’s obvious among those extremists who resort to force or violence to promote their agenda (the so-called “eco-terrorists,” radical criminal groups mostly located in the western U.S.); it’s less obvious, to varying degrees, among other activists who seek to use governmental power to promote their agenda, under the guise of law. For many, environmentalism is a form of fanaticism akin to religion; and indeed, radical environmentalism is very much like a religion – it’s based on blind faith, and it is propagated by fear and ignorance. (For more on environmentalists’ fear-mongering, see my previous essay, “Merchants of Fear,” May 17, 2006. Among other topics I discuss in that essay is the myth of global warming – including the convenient lies propagated by the idiotic former vice-perpetrator Al Gore, in his film and book both entitled “An Inconvenient Truth.” Some people in the media report that a “consensus” among scientists supports the thesis that man-made carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels causes global warming, but science is not determined by consensus. Scientific truths are not subject to majority vote; they are determined by objective analysis, applying sound scientific theory to empirical evidence. And, although still a minority among the politicized scientific community, a number of prominent climate scientists continue to cast doubt on the spurious theories advanced by the Al Gores of the world. For more on this, see Patrick J. Michaels’ excellent Policy Analysis for the Cato Institute, “Is the Sky Really Falling? A Review of Recent Global Warming Scare Stories,” Aug. 23, 2006; and for recent criticism of Al Gore’s scaremongering, see Flemming Rose and Bjorn Lomborg, “Will Al Gore Melt?,” Wall Street Jorunal, Jan. 19.) Because radical environmentalists are among the groups that comprise the core constituency of the Democratic Party, the Democrats’ resumption of control over Congress means that, unfortunately, in the short run, federal laws will continue to reflect the agenda of the environmentalist lobby – and Americans will continue being denied their freedom to exploit the resources of the earth. For example, there’s little hope now that Congress would permit further oil and gas drilling in Alaska or off the U.S. continental shelf, despite the vast reserves available there (the exploitation of which, incidentally, would help achieve the politicians’ stated goal of reducing U.S. dependence on imported oil). Massachusetts Democrat Ed Markey has already introduced legislation in the House to make the oil-rich 1.2-million-acre coastal strip of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge a permanent protected wilderness, off limits to oil drilling. With Speaker Nancy also creating a House select committee on “climate change” to be chaired by Mr. Markey, we can expect more such foolish legislation to be introduced in Congress and passed into law – unless President Bush has the guts to veto it, as he should. (The Bush administration’s recent embrace of politically-correct global warming foolishness, coupled with the President’s proposals regarding energy conservation in this year’s State of the Union address, suggest that Bush will cave in to the radical environmentalists and their lackeys in the Congress.)
Freedom of Self-Defense vs. State Monopolists
Yet another important aspect of individuals’ fundamental right to liberty is their right – also a natural right, as America’s founders understood – to defend themselves. This is the right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – the famous right “to keep and bear arms” – as well as by similar provisions in the state constitutions (some of which go even further than the Second Amendment in explicitly protecting individuals’ rights to self-defense). The chief enemy of this liberty right is a largely left-liberal group of “gun control” activists – that is, advocates of government control over the possession and use of firearms. Because the right of self-defense means, essentially, that the government ought not to have a monopoly over firearms and other weapons necessary for individuals to protect themselves against criminals (including, potentially, the government itself), the advocates of gun control, essentially, advocate that government have a monopoly over firearms. Rather than seeing the ownership of guns as a right that individuals naturally have – and which can be forfeited, legitimately, only if an individual abuses that right to violate other persons’ rights (for example, by being convicted of a serious crime involving use of a firearm, such as armed robbery) – the gun-control activists would give the state the power to determine whether or not any individual can possess a firearm – and thus make citizens even more dependent upon government. For poorer or politically less powerful persons (such as residents in high-crime urban areas), the gun-control activists’ agenda means, in practice, leaving these people vulnerable to criminals (because they cannot depend on government police for their protection). And for all Americans, it means leaving the entire populace vulnerable to government police and its potential to abuse power. (As the much-misunderstood “militia clause,” the explanatory phrase that precedes the Second Amendment, suggests, a self-reliant, well-armed populace is necessary to resist tyranny and thus to preserve a free society.) Fortunately, there are a number of effective lobbying groups – chiefly, the National Rifle Association (NRA), the Gun Owners of America (GOA), and various state GOA chapters – that advocate preservation of this fundamental right and oppose efforts by the advocates of gun control (or of a state monopoly over firearms) to abridge it. These groups are often described as “pro-gun,” or “gun rights,” groups, but they are more properly described as civil rights organizations (indeed, the NRA is the largest true “civil-rights organization” in the United States) because the right of access to firearms for self-defense purposes is an essential civil right and – to paraphrase a common saying – “guns don’t have rights, only people do.” (Many “anti-gun,” or pro-government control activists, seem to be motivated by an irrational fear, or paranoia, about guns – as well as a naïve faith in the power of government to legislate away guns from society. But guns, in themselves, are neither good nor bad; it all depends on how they’re used. And self-defense activists are right in maintaining that laws aimed at controlling guns keep them out of the hands, not of criminals, but of “law-abiding” individuals.) With regard to this aspect of freedom, there’s been much good news in recent years: self-defense activists have been very successful, on both the state and national level, and are likely to continue being successful, despite the Democrats’ control of Congress. Most states in the U.S. have now passed laws allowing individuals to carry concealed weapons to defend themselves, and efforts to expand federal firearms controls (such as the ban on so-called “assault weapons” and the registration requirements of the Brady Act) have been repulsed. Although Democrats generally are more supportive of government gun-control measures than are Republicans, a number of Democrats – including a critical number of members of Congress who comprise the new Democrat majority – are “moderate” on gun issues and would not vote to undermine individual rights of self-defense. Even the formation of a new hunters’ organization sympathetic to government control of guns – the new American Hunters & Shooters Association, which is billed as an alternative to the NRA – is, actually, a good sign, for it underscores the effectiveness of the NRA as an advocacy group. (The NRA, for example, was effective in calling public attention to the government’s denial of citizens’ self-defense rights in the attempt to disarm residents of New Orleans in the aftermath of the post-Katrina flooding.)
Sexual Freedom vs. The Neo-Victorian “Morality” Police
Human beings also are, by nature, sexual beings; that means that humans engage in sex not only to procreate but also for happiness and self-fulfillment. (For more on this, see my previous essay “In Defense of Sex,” May 16, 2005.) Unfortunately, however, the Judeo-Christian religious/ moral tradition has taught many people in the Western world that sex is “sinful” unless engaged in by married heterosexuals for purposes of procreation. (Similar anti-sex teachings are also prevalent in the Islamic world.) And, in the United States since the early 20th century, the anti-sex teachings of the Judeo-Christian tradition are reinforced in many people by a Victorian moral code that is especially repressive with regard to matters of human sexuality. (I say “Victorian,” rather than the commonly-used label “Puritanical,” because the Puritans of 17th-century England and America were actually far less inhibited on matters of sex than commonly believed; the origins of truly inhibiting attitudes about sex – attitudes that lead to individual repression of feelings, as well as government suppression of actions, concerning sexuality – came during the late Victorian era, that is, at the end of the 19th century.) Despite much progress that has been made since the so-called “sexual revolution” of the 1960s and 1970s, sexual freedom is still abridged in the United States by a variety of laws reflecting the values of a repressive Victorian version of the Judeo-Christian anti-sex “morality” – laws that, by interfering with human beings’ quite natural impulses for sexual activity, deny individuals yet another fundamental aspect of freedom. (Of course, here I’m referring to the freedom of consenting adults. Minors – that is, persons below the legal age of consent – do not fully hold this aspect of the right to liberty; and government, by law, legitimately may limit their and others’ freedom in order to protect them from harm or the use of force, especially by adults.) Such illegitimate laws include laws that criminalize prostitution (an abridgment not only of sexual freedom but also of economic freedom), laws that criminalize “obscenity” and so-called “pornography” (which, as discussed below, also abridge freedom of expression), and laws that limit the right to marry to heterosexual couples. With regard to the latter, it’s downright embarrassing that the United States of America – in most other respects, the freest nation on earth – is not among the vanguard of nations that give legal recognition to same-sex marriages. So far, only five nations – Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, South Africa, and Spain (yes, even predominantly Roman Catholic Spain!) – have legalized same-sex marriages; only one U.S. state (Massachusetts) allows homosexual couples to marry, while four others (California, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Vermont) legally recognize homosexual civil unions or domestic partnerships. Other American jurisdictions will follow, and eventually same-sex unions will be recognized across the U.S.A. – but it will probably take a long time, perhaps several decades, for that to happen. Unfortunately, for the time being, homophobia and Victorian repressive attitudes about sexuality in general will trump Americans’ consistent and principled commitment to our individualistic founding principles. (For more on this – and particularly why the commitment to “traditional” marriage is so un-American – see my previous essay, “Marriage, American Style,” May 19, 2004.) It’s also embarrassing that until fairly recently – until the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas (2005), invalidating sodomy laws – that in some U.S. states, it was criminal for consenting adults to engage in certain sexual acts (generally, oral or anal sex), even in the privacy of their own homes. Laws that criminalize sexual acts between consenting adults – including not only sodomy laws, but also laws criminalizing prostitution, “lewd” conduct, and even adultery – have no place in a free society. Only actions that truly violate other persons’ rights – not things that some people regard as “immoral” – ought to be the subject of the criminal law.
Freedom of Expression vs. Censorship
One of the most precious aspects of liberty – one that was emphasized particularly by the great 19th-century English philosopher John Stuart Mill, in his classic essay On Liberty – is the freedom of individuals to think for themselves and to express their thoughts publicly. Freedom of expression is not limited to political ideas; it includes the freedom to express anything (including, for example, religion and sexuality), provided the expression is not directly harmful to other persons (such as false, defamatory statements that injure another person’s reputation, for which tort law appropriately provides legal redress). Freedom of expression continues to be endangered from both the left and the right – that is, from both left-liberals (the Democrat side of the Demopublican/Replicrat coalition) and conservatives (the Republican side of the coalition), with activists on each side eager to have government prohibit or control those ideas or forms of expression that they dislike. In recent years, Republicans and conservatives have been in the vanguard of the movement to increase the power of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to censor so-called “indecent” speech broadcast by TV or radio stations. Not only is such censorship anathema to the freedom of speech that ought to be protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution, but the very existence of the FCC, as an agency empowered to control speech, is anathema to the Constitution. As I argued in my previous essay, “Abolish the F*CCing FCC!” (Feb. 8, 2006), the FCC ought to be abolished because, among other things, it’s a direct violation of the language of the First Amendment (“Congress shall pass no law abridging freedom of speech”). For purposes of First Amendment freedom of speech, there ought to be no such thing as an “indecency” or “obscenity” exception – an exception to the general rule in favor of free speech, which would permit government to regulate, or even to ban, certain forms of speech regarded by some as “indecent” or “obscene” – because such determinations are inherently subjective and involve government censoring the speech of some persons simply because it’s offensive to others (government bureaucrats or judges, pressured by Victorian special-interest groups). A basic principle of freedom of speech is that we all must tolerate speech even though we find it offensive. Not just persons on the “right” side of the traditional left-right political spectrum, however, are the enemies of freedom of speech, for left-liberals (or so-called “progressives”) are equally guilty of advocating use of the coercive power of government to censor speech they find offensive. Thus, with Democrats now controlling Congress, some left-liberals are pushing for the reinstatement of the FCC’s so-called “fairness doctrine” (originally, a 1949 rule by the FCC requiring radio, and later TV stations, to devote some amount of airtime to the discussion of public issues and to have “both sides” represented), which is yet another egregious form of government control over, and censorship of, free speech. In practice, the fairness doctrine stifled speech, by artificially imposing “equal time” rules that distorted public issues (most issues have more than just two sides) – rules that many broadcasters avoided by simply shying away from controversial political subjects. The real purpose behind left-liberals’ support for revival of the fairness doctrine is to attempt to silence conservative talk radio hosts, such as Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity, whose popularity (and commercial success) they resent. (Attempts by Al Franken and others to host radio shows with a leftist “liberal” or “progressive” slant largely have failed, in the fairest forum of all – an unfettered free market.) Many Democrats and left-liberals also support government regulation of political campaign fundraising and expenditures, in the name of campaign finance “reform” – the whole history of which has been the history of suppressing freedom of political speech, as my friend and colleague Brad Smith (former chairman of the Federal Election Commission) has maintained in many of his writings (See, for example, his recent op-ed marking the unhappy centennial of federal campaign finance regulation.) Moreover, many so-called “liberals” on college campuses support the use of campus “speech codes” to censor certain forms of speech they find offensive or “intimidating” to members of certain groups. As I have discussed here in several previous essays, the organization that I’m proud to support, called F.I.R.E. (the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) has been remarkably successful in fighting against speech codes and other attempts to stifle free speech on America’s campuses – see the FIRE website, for some recent controversies – putting the forces of “political correctness” (the “p.c. police,” as I call them) on the defensive. But it is a constant battle, one that will continue being hard fought on campuses and in legislative halls across America, throughout the foreseeable future. Another infringement of Americans’ free-speech rights that is actively supported by Democrats and left-liberals – and which is likely to continue under a Democrat-controlled Congress – is the use of compulsory union dues for political advocacy. No employee of a unionized work force -- whether a public school teacher or an assembly-line worker – ought to be forced to pay dues to a labor union which uses that money for political purposes (or any purpose other than legitimate collective-bargaining activities). Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a case brought by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and to be decided later this year, may vindicate employee rights by upholding the provisions of state “paycheck protection” laws and “right to work” laws, designed to prevent unions from collecting dues from members and nonmembers for political purposes (and thus to protect workers’ free speech rights, as well as their economic freedom). As the Wall Street Journal noted in a recent editorial, the Court has an opportunity in this case (Washington v. Washington Education Association) to “stop Big Labor from continuing to trample the rights of employees averse to funding a union’s political agenda” (“Labor’s Money Grab,” Jan. 11).
Individualism vs. Group-Identity Politics
Rights, properly speaking, pertain only to individuals; groups of people do not have any rights. Attempts to give pseudo-rights to groups of people invariably invade the legitimate rights of individuals. For example, anti-discrimination laws – which make it unlawful for businesses to discriminate on the basis of race, sex, age, or other specified criteria, in hiring or in entering into contracts – purport to safeguard the “right” of persons in the protected groups from being “discriminated against,” but that’s not a legitimate right. Because all types of valid contracts require two willing parties (“it takes two to tango”), no one has the “right” to compel an unwilling employer, landlord, or businessman to deal with him, against his will (however irrational his refusal to deal might be). What anti-discrimination laws really do is to violate the right of the employer or the business owner to freely contract as he wishes – a legitimate right. So-called “affirmative action” programs (or “diversity” programs, an even more misleading term) – which are really race (or sex) preference programs, mandating that universities admit students or businesses hire employees based on the applicant’s racial or sexual identity, given preference to members of certain supposedly “disadvantaged” groups – are a violation not only of freedom of contract but also of the principle of individualism, which holds that persons ought to be evaluated based on their merits as an individual and not based on their group identity. Such race- (or sex-) based programs are themselves racist or sexist because they assume that all persons of a certain race (or sex) have common attributes that distinguish them from other persons – such “groupism” is a form of collectivism and thus the enemy of individualism, the only true antidote to racism or sexism. Such programs also pervert the very meaning of “diversity,” which really ought to emphasize individual differences rather than supposed group identities. Moreover, such programs violate the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause, which (properly interpreted) ought to prohibit government, for any reason, from classifying persons according to race or gender. (I discuss all this more fully in my previous essay, “Affirmative Racism,” Jan. 23, 2006.) In recent years, there have been many positive developments, with advocates of individualism scoring real victories in the battle against the advocates of groupism. The Supreme Court, with a slight majority of “conservative” justices, has ruled that race-preference programs violate both the Equal Protection clause and federal civil rights laws. Justice O’Connor broke ranks with her fellow conservatives (and moderates) on the Court, joining with the four left-liberal justices, in holding in one of the 2005 University of Michigan “affirmative action” cases that public universities could take race into account, in admitting students, in order to have a “diverse” student body – a ruling that may not stand, now that the more consistently conservative Justice Samuel Alito has replaced O’Connor on the Roberts Court. (The Court is expected later this year to restrict racial gerrymandering in public schools, another decision to be applauded.) In the November 2006 elections, voters in Michigan approved a referendum – Proposal 2, modeled after a similar successful referendum in California – which prohibited race preferences in public college admissions and government employment. Although administrators at the University of Michigan have vowed to challenge the new law in court – in an effort to continue the university’s racist admissions policies – the University recently announced that it would comply with the voter-approved ban on affirmative action and stop considering race and gender in admissions, starting with next fall’s entering class. (“U. of Michigan to end race-based admissions,” USA Today, Jan. 11.) The success of the Michigan referendum ought to encourage other states (including Ohio) to put similar measures on the ballot. Finally, in another partial victory, the Bush administration’s Department of Education has decided to renew the American Bar Association’s authority to accredit U.S. law schools for only 18 months, instead of the usual five years – a decision designed to send a powerful message about the ABA’s new “diversity” standard, which is intended to force U.S. law schools to implement race-preference admissions programs even if they violate the law (such as the constitutional amendments in states like California and Michigan prohibiting such programs). The ABA policy is part of the organization’s left-wing political advocacy – the major reason why I resigned my ABA membership many years ago (for more on this, see my previous essay, “The ABA’s Leftist Politics,” Aug. 24, 2006) – and is a blatant attempt to disregard the law (and individual rights), in order to advance a leftist, group-politics agenda. The ABA should not be permitted to hold its monopoly over American legal education; its status as a government-approved accrediting institution ought to be revoked.
Freedom of (Political) Choice vs. The Demopublican/Replicrat Monopoly
From the standpoint of liberty, it’s readily apparent that there’s no essential difference between the two major political parties in the United States today. Although the Republicans are marginally better than Democrats on some issues – and the Democrats are marginally better than Republicans on a few other issues – both parties fail to fully and consistently protect individual freedom. Both sides of the “Demopublican/Replicrat” party, as I call organized American politics today, have accepted far too many of the paternalistic premises on which the modern regulatory/welfare state is based, as I discuss more fully in my previous essay, “Demopublicans and Replicrats” (Nov. 17, 2005). What’s especially troubling to libertarians and others who value individual freedom in all its important aspects is that the Demopublican/Replicrats hold a virtually monopoly over the American political system. For us, there’s essentially no choice on the ballot – no candidate whom we can support, who truly reflects our principles (except for an occasional libertarian or limited-government conservative Republican – for example, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, of Texas, who’s the only announced GOP presidential candidate whom we find acceptable). There is a Libertarian Party – the largest third party in modern U.S. politics – but for various reasons, not all libertarians find the LP a viable alternative. Moreover, election laws in most states are skewed heavily to favor the two major political parties, making it difficult for third parties like the LP to even have access to ballots. Campaign finance regulations not only abridge citizens’ free speech rights but also are designed to help protect incumbent politicians from effective challenge – yet another way in which existing state and federal laws help maintain the Demopublican/Replicrat monopoly. Those laws must be changed, in order to give Americans real freedom of political choice. Finally, term limits are another important way in which Americans can try to reclaim political offices from the Demopublican/Replicrat politicians who monopolize them. That’s why incumbent politicians are so opposed to term limit laws – and why citizens ought to fight, not only to maintain, but to make them even more stringent.
Freedom under a Republican Government vs. Democracy
People with a simplistic, or superficial, understanding of political philosophy describe the American political system as a “democracy,” but – thanks to America’s founders and the framers of our constitutions – that’s not true. As I discussed in a previous essay, “A Republic – Not a Democracy” (June 6, 2005), we are not a democracy but a constitutional republic – that is, a nation with a representative government, limited by written constitutions that limit government power both to prevent power from being abused and to protect individual rights. Democracy, as a pure form of government, is simply rule by the majority; and as political philosophers from Aristotle’s time to today have realized, democracy is as apt to be tyrannical as any other form of government – certainly no less so than either a pure monarchy, or dictatorship (that is, rule by the one) or a pure aristocracy or oligarchy (rule by a few). Understanding this, America’s founders chose a republican form of government – not pure democracy, but representative democracy, with the power of government checked and restrained by constitutional limitations – to help avoid tyranny. Yet today the United States is suffering from an excess of democracy. That’s yet another sad legacy of the so-called Progressive movement of the early 20th century – another way in which so-called “Progressive” reformers moved our legal and political system away from its founding principles. Among their reforms were such devices as the initiative or the referendum: devices designed to by-pass the legislatures and to allow “the people” (not the whole people, but rather special interest groups) to put proposed laws on the ballot, for direct popular election. The problem with such directly democratic policy-making, as noted above, is that it’s apt to lead to tyranny – the “tyranny of the majority,” as Alexis de Tocqueville described it, in his classic book Democracy in America. As the November 2006 election results in many states demonstrate, the easy availability of the referendum process permits special-interest activists to by-pass state legislatures and put proposals on the ballot that, when approved by a majority of gullible voters, can abridge other citizens’ freedoms. Thus, for example, referenda have been used to impose bans on smoking in public places, increases in state-mandated minimum wages, and bans on same-sex marriages. Not all referenda violate people’s rights, however. As noted above, efforts to ban the use of race or sex preferences by the government – that is, efforts to force the government to treat persons as individuals rather than as members of groups – have been approved by voters in California and Michigan and are likely to gain approval in additional states in coming years. Efforts to decriminalize drugs – particularly, to approve the medicinal use of marijuana – have succeeded in some states but failed in others. And rules imposing term limits and other rules limiting the power of government have succeeded in many states only because citizens could by-pass the legislature by putting such measures on the ballot as referenda. Indeed, one may argue that the only proper type of proposals to be instituted by popular vote, rather than by legislatures, are proposals that limit political power, such as term limits. Generally, so long as major policy decisions are made directly by voters rather than by their elected representatives in the legislature, the rights of the individual will remain precarious, as Tocqueville warned.
Freedom of Thought vs. Religion
Yet another aspect of liberty that has proved to be especially precious is the freedom of the individual to think – and with regard to religion, that means the freedom to believe or not to believe as one chooses. Historically, that freedom has been threatened by religious believers who, convinced that their particular religion is “true,” aim to use the coercive power of government to impose their beliefs on others. That’s why the principle of religious freedom – which, properly understood, includes application of the much-misunderstood concept of “the wall of separation between church and state” – is not only a fundamental principle of American constitutional law but also one of the key founding principles on which the United States of America was established. (We are not a “Christian nation,” as many religious fanatics erroneously assert; on the contrary, we are a nation founded on the principle of religious freedom. The fact that a majority of Americans, from the time of the founding of the original 13 English colonies to the present day, identify their religious beliefs as “Christian” is, frankly, irrelevant to the nation’s essential characteristic under the law.) Notwithstanding the many positive contributions that the Christian religion (and particularly the Protestant dissenting tradition within Christianity) has made to individual freedom in the West, it’s also the case – sadly – that organized religion (and Christianity in particular) has also been one of the chief enemies of liberty, not only in Western history but also in American history. Just as the medieval Church burned at the stake as “heretics” individuals who dared to think, many modern “true believers” have been encouraged by their churches to use force (either directly, or indirectly through the coercive power of government) to take away the freedom of others who think differently than they – whether it’s a biology teacher in a public school (like John Scopes in 1920s Tennessee, or in present-day Kansas) who wants to teach the scientific theory of evolution rather than religious dogma of “intelligent design,” or a doctor who wants to save a pregnant woman’s life by terminating an early-stage pregnancy, or a legally-authorized representative of a terminally-ill or a brain-dead person (like Terri Schiavo) who wants to be able to die with dignity. As some of these recent controversies have show, many religiously-motivated “pro-life” activists are really anti-life, in the only sense in which the “right to life” is truly valid and important – the individual’s right to own his/her own life. Because they believe that it is the abstract, supernatural entity they call “God” that owns a person’s life, they do not believe that any individual has the right, or freedom, to end their own life – and this largely explains why such activists are so fanatically opposed to all forms of abortion, suicide, and assisted suicide. As with other issues involving religious beliefs, they’re free to believe as they choose – but they are not entitled to use the coercive power of government to impose their beliefs (beliefs I regard as irrational) on others. (For more on the irrationality of Christian beliefs – and how it’s not only Christian theology, but also Christian ethics, that’s destructive of human happiness – see my previous essay, “Why I Am Not a Christian,” April 20, 2006. The mental destructiveness of religious fanaticism, especially to the impressionable minds of children, has been exposed in the chilling documentary, Jesus Camp. As anyone who views that film can see, fanatical Christians have taught children as young as 5 to squirm in spiritual ecstasy, speak in tongues, sob for salvation, and dance with their faces painted in camouflage as part of “God’s army” – actions that, but for our protection of free exercise of religion, could be justifiably seen as forms of child abuse.) It’s not just the much-decried “Religious Right” that endangers freedom of thought and other essential aspects of liberty in the United States today, but also what I call the “Religious Left” – a coalition of various religious organizations (Catholic and Protestant, “mainline” and evangelical), which actually constitutes the majority of organized Christians in the U.S., and which advocates left-wing political causes, also in the name of religion – such causes as government (that is, taxpayer-funded) “welfare” (or income redistribution) programs, increases in the minimum wage, labor laws, environmental laws and regulations, and so on. In a thoughtful article in USA Today (“Left, right, and religion: A double standard”), Patrick Hymes and Jeremy Lott have written about the double standard in American politics today (not surprising, since most journalists, academics, and other “intellectuals” have a clear left-wing political bias), which demonizes the “religious right” for pursuing a political agenda aligned with its beliefs but which looks the other way when the religious left tries to do the same. For example, they point out, the Rev. Jim Wallis, author of the bestselling God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It, has argued that national and state governments ought to legislate consistent with “God’s vision of a good society offered to us by the prophet Isaiah” – which, as he understands it, means Robin Hood-like policies that take from the rich and give to the poor. When Alabama Gov. Bob Riley attempted to do this in 2003 – with a plan to cut income taxes for the poor, hike takes for the well-off, and use the additional revenue to pump more money into the public-school system, arguing that helping “the least among us” is what Jesus would do – even churchgoing Alabamians sensibly rejected at the ballot box such “Jesus-flavored progressivism.”
Western Civilization vs. Militant Islam
Last, but not least among the threats to liberty that deserve mention here, is the continuing threat that militant Islam poses to the liberties (and lives) of all persons, not only in the United States but literally around the world. It’s not an exaggeration to say that militant, fundamentalist Muslims (“terrorists,” as we euphemistically call them) pose the most dangerous threat to Western civilization (and the emphasis on individual freedom that is the highest and best legacy of the West) in the world today. In a future essay, later this spring, I plan to write more about this danger – and about the imminent and inevitable war that must be fought against our very real enemy, militant Islam.
| Link to this Entry | Posted Friday, January 26, 2007 | Copyright © David N. Mayer |
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