The totality of individual liberty
Democratic Strategist has an interesting post up on the meaning of liberty. As with all things in life, things aren’t black and white. I strongly believe that individual liberty and autonomy are the highest good that government is instituted to protect. And yet, as she writes here, we often must give up some freedom in order to ensure greater liberty for ourselves. Defense is a good example. She gives another:
Normally, the point of driving is to get somewhere. The traffic laws enable us to get where we are going much more quickly and safely than we would if each of us had to decide for him- or herself which side of the street to drive on. The traffic laws do not tell us where to go. They leave the choice of destination, and for that matter the decision whether to drive at all, entirely up to us. They simply tell us which side of the road to drive on, that we should stop at various points, and so forth. By taking away our freedom to drive on the left, or to blast through busy intersections, they grant us much more freedom in the form of a greatly enhanced ability to get wherever we want to go quickly and safely.
Anyone who thinks that the traffic laws enhance our freedom should acknowledge that in some cases, including this one, government action can enhance our freedom, even if that action takes the form of restrictions on what we can and cannot do. An enormous number of questions about which (other) forms of government action might enhance our freedom would remain to be answered, but the fact that some government policy involves either a more active government or new restrictions on our action would not, by itself, imply that it diminishes our freedom.
Of course the problem then becomes, how do we measure personal liberty? If our goal it to increase the total freedom and liberty of all individuals, what restrictions will do that and which ones will not. That’s the basis of a lot of arguments and debates.
If we can agree, and I think most sane American Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians and others do, that individual liberty is a paramount goal of government, then we can have civil (if vehement) disagreement as how that is to be accomplished. I usually have an optimistic outlook that civil and even sometime heated debate and discussion, by those in power and those in opposition can lead to legislation that increases to totality of individual liberty. Unfortunately, I have not seen that in the last 10 years. I lay that problem squarely in the lap of Bush-Rove-Cheney and the Republican party who spent the first 8 years of this decade not only demolishing the whole idea of personal liberty, but demonizing the opposition as unpatriotic and anti-American, or using gay men and women as scapegoats. Unfortunately, many in the Republican party even now shout communism, tyranny, socialism and fascism against all sane and reasoned consideration. It’s not particularly conducive to governing. This is not to say that Democrats and those on the left haven’t had their share of insanity. I’ve read some of the diaries on DailyKos, I’ve seen it. In fact, in 2004, I started myself to get a bit over the top.
I’d hope we could agree that our basic premise we share is the increase of individual liberty and respectfully disagree on some of the best ways to get there.
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