How does dependency on government programs lead an individual to freedom?
Posted on March 24th, 2010 by admin
as recognized in the Constitution?
Is there a new group of representatives that has missed the point of freedom?
It’s not that they’ve missed the point, it’s that they reject the premise of individual freedom under Natural Law.
Washington DC is currently controlled by Progressives, not Classical Liberals. Classical Liberals are ardent defenders of individual freedom in all cases. The only party that remotely adheres to that philosophy is the Libertarian Party.
Progressivism is predicated on the flawed notion that the human species can be perfected. They rely heavily on the philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and Karl Marx in asserting that man is inherently at war with others on economic and social matters and requires the politician to control them. Life is a natural right. Liberty is only guaranteed to the extent that the state permits and private property does not exist. Think about that notion for a minute. How can you carry out a strategy that forces a single form of perfection of individuals who see themselves as autonomous, rational, independent people?
The US is built on the premise that humanity, by virtue of its existence, is endowed with 3 Natural Rights. Those are life, liberty, and private property. Life is self explanatory. Liberty is the freedom to apply your life to the world around you or in the service of others. For that application an individual is compensated with private property that is equivalent in their determination to the portion of their life an liberty that they gave in exchange. According to the principles of our founding, government was created by free people to protect those 3 rights. It cannot take a single step beyond protection without infringing on and violating those rights in favor of one over another. While not mandatory, this line of thinking is consistent with Judeo-Christian values and ideas about God, heaven, and the fallibility and free will of man. It embraces man’s free will and permits its absolute exercise so long as it does not infringe on others. Man’s free exercise of his free will in concert with every other individual’s free exercise of their free will leads to order and prosperity. It denies unlimited control to politicians as an acknowledgment that they are merely human.
Progressivism is premised on the idea that an enlightened few can lead the population to perfection on Earth. While not essential, a rejection of religion generally accompanies such political beliefs. The essential underlying premise is that government, or rather the enlightened governing class, is the source of prosperity for a nation. Man’s free exercise of his free will in concert with every other individual’s free exercise of their free will leads to disorder and destruction. Therefore, the politician (who is apparently not subject to the same flaws as the common man because of social status, education, and superior breeding) must direct society in a way that leads it away from its own destruction.
There are always those who resist being led. Free people don’t like to be told they have to do something, particularly when what they are being told to do makes absolutely no sense to anyone except the Progressive politicians in charge. The easiest way to stifle resistance is with a totalitarian central government, virtually unconnected to local individuals. It is far easier to treat those individuals as parts of the machine rather than freely thinking individual human beings with their own free will. This is not unique to modern ages. Every strong central authority in history has adopted parts, if not all, of this ideology. It is the specific reason why the founders sought to limit the federal government to a small number of explicitly enumerated powers. Oddly enough, those who still buy into the rhetoric of Democrat and Republican politicians actually believe the two parties have divergent end goals. Hopefully they wake up before its to late to realize that the argument is really between free people and Progressive politicians.