What Is Freedom?
January 14th, 2008 by Peter SudermanOur comments section has been pleasantly lively recently, and one of the subjects that has come up is a certain confusion over the notion of “freedom.” Now, it would be easy to spend all day (or all year) discussing the myriad concepts of what freedom is and what it entails, but since this isn’t a philosophy blog, I’ll try to avoid overkill. That said, since both this blog and the organization it represents base their names around the idea, it may not be a bad idea to briefly define how we think of it.
When we speak of freedom here, we’re generally using the term in a classical liberal sense, meaning we prize individual liberties and property rights. We tend to think that the state should have limited scope, size, and power, in large part because the state, unlike other institutions and societal actors, has the power of the military behind it. So the state needs to be limited in a way that other institutions do not, because the government, unlike a big corporation or a community activist group, can use military force (violence) against an individual.
Moreover, we tend to think that individuals generally should have the right to live their lives as they please so long as this does not directly infringe on the liberties or property rights of others. I think the best summation of this idea came from John Stuart Mill, who, back in 1859 wrote that:
The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to attain it.
Alternately, there’s the definition given by our own Dick Armey in his book, The Freedom Revolution:
Freedom is the ability and responsibility to control one’s own destiny. It is not the freedom from responsibility; it is the acceptance of it; it is a personal, not a social responsibility. It is, as Miltion Friedman says, “to be free to choose,” not to be free from choice.
January 14th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Ah, “classical liberalism” or, as we generally call it here in the USA, “conservatism”. I agree that what we think of in this country as liberal and conservative is really a narrow view when compared to the rest of the world. A lot of countries around the world have a much more diverse and wider field of political views from the “left and right” ends of the spectrum.
What I think distinguishes liberals and conservatives in this country is the degree to which conservatives are fearful of govt. (for the reasons stated above quite well) and, more importantly, that conservatives are very suspicious of even democracies because they feel that an individual’s nature is not entirely sound. In their minds, if one person is ill-mannered, ill-informed, etc., etc., then surely more than one person working together with others through a democratic govt. is definitely something to be feared and opposed.
Liberals recognize that govt. is merely made up of regular people that can, and frequently do, make good decisions in the long run about how a society should conduct itself. Conservatives triumph the freedom of individuals to choose just about whatever they would want to do. Somehow in their minds, the un-democratic actions of groups of individuals together acting to enhance their own bottom line thru the market (business) is to be trusted more than a democratic institution. Property and money are almost everything to a “classical liberal”, and Friedman is their God…
January 15th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to attain it.
You guys don’t seem to get the second half of that.
January 15th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Ah, “classical liberalism” or, as we generally call it here in the USA, “conservatism”.
Not exactly, though, Mister Guy. Remember, Classical Liberalism was very hostile to warfare and military expenditures. Now, FreedomWorks isn’t hostile to that (have you EVER seen a single post about military spending on this blog?), but that’s not surprising, since they’re a partisan, Republican outfit—hardly the non-partisan “think tank” they claim.
Of course they attempt to cast themselves as Classical Liberals but they’re obviously not. They cherry-pick the Adam Smith they want their “grassroots” supporters to believe without telling them about Smith’s advocacy of government intervention in markets. They switched their position on “Big Sugar” the moment the sugar industry in Florida donated some money to them. They refuse to list their corporate donors citing “privacy” concerns (I wasn’t aware that pieces of paper had rights to privacy) or say much of anything about how they get their funding, but you’re probably already aware that the seed money for FreedomWorks precursor came from oil company funds. They sent one of their own employees to act as a “single mom” at a White House economic conference on Social Security Privatization (which, if passed, would benefit certain members of their board). Dick Armey himself reportedly touted the benefits of a pharmacy management company in exchange for a donation from that company to FreedomWorks. It used its campaign budget in 2006 solely to elect Republicans. The Washington Post reported that CSE earned $638,000 and 16,000 unwitting members due to a scam they were running with Republican businessman J. Patrick Rooney. (Read about it in the Washington Post—FreedomWorks was definitely not acting as though they supported individual freedom, since they were essentially forcing people to join their organization without their knowledge.) They tried to screw with the election by getting Ralph Nader on ballots in states he had no support in—not too different than what the lefty site Daily Kos is trying to do with Romney the Michigan primary. And, of course, they have ties to the Swift Boat Vets.
They pay well, too. Kibbe earned well over $100k in ‘04-’05 for part-time work. Dick Armey, again for part-time work, earned almost half a million from them in 2004, and another $300k+ the next year. Who knows what these kids posting here make.
In essence, FreedomWorks is little more than Dick Armey’s personal think-tank, producing an army of duped “grassroots” volunteers to help back up Armey’s lobbying firm.
January 15th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
I don’t think there’s much thinking going on in the minds of the people that post to this “blog”. It looks like they’re developing comedy material mostly.
Our military spending in this country has dwarfed everyone of our potential enemies (and allies for that matter) by many, many, many times over the last several decades…and there’s no end in sight. People make money hand over fist on killing and destruction, but that’s OK here…because they are making the almighty dollar!