Reflecting on Freedom
By Robert Ringer
To my surprise, I recently saw child actor Matt Damon reciting the Declaration of Independence as part of a promo for a History Channel documentary he’s co-producing. I was taken aback by this because I had never heard anything but angry, anti-liberty rhetoric come from Damon’s mouth. Nevertheless, I’m glad I happened to catch him in his perplexing performance, because it reminded me of a subject that Americans need to give some long, hard thought to: freedom.
The way the socialist crowd that now controls the power levers in Washington throw around words like freedom and liberty, you’d think they were descendents of the Founding Fathers. And, the truth be known, they’re sincere when they use such words.
Radical revolutionaries like Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Jeff Jones, et al believe it is they who are the true advocates of freedom. Remember, Che, Castro, Mao, and Lenin all saw themselves as “freedom fighters.”
That’s right — virtually all socialists/Marxists/communists sincerely believe they are champions of freedom. Have you ever heard a dictator say he is against freedom? I think we can all agree that just about everyone claims to be in favor of freedom. The problem, however, is that there is much disagreement on the true meaning of the word.
Unfortunately, one individual’s idea of freedom can actually violate another person’s freedom. To one person, liberty means doing what he wants with his own life, while to another person it means doing what he wants with other people’s lives. Therefore, both of these people say that the other person’s concept of freedom is tyranny.
To the laissez-faire businessman, freedom means an end to all government regulation. To the communist, freedom can be achieved only when individual incentive has been crushed and “the people” own everything. Some people (e.g., Judge Sonia Sotomayor) believe that job quotas for minority groups promote freedom. But to a person who is anti-discriminatory in the truest sense of the word, quotas and preferential treatment based on seniority are violations of human freedom.
Based on the evidence, I think we can safely conclude that throughout history people have miscommunicated on the subject of freedom. Since conservatives, liberals, bigots, fascists, communists, environmentalists, and every other group imaginable all claim to be in favor of freedom, they obviously cannot all be talking about the same thing.
The dictionary defines freedom as “being free.” In turn, free is defined as “not under the control or power of another.” How can there be so much confusion over a definition so clearly stated? For one thing, when some people (e.g., progressives) talk about freedom, they think it means they are free to do as they please to others.
Also, throughout recorded history, utopian thinkers have confused freedom with equality. But nothing could be more incorrect. No matter what one’s moral desires, nature has made freedom and equality totally incompatible. “Freedom and equality,” wrote Will and Ariel Durant, “are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies.’’
As the government steps up its efforts to defy nature and bring about equality on a global scale, it will find it increasingly necessary to employ force. And when force enters the picture, some people are going to come under the control of others — which is tyranny, not freedom.
Thus, you may be surprised, after a little probing, to find that when people espouse freedom, often they are referring to their freedom, not yours. Worse, you may discover that their freedom necessitates the violation of your freedom.
When freedom is subjectively defined by each individual, it is reduced to a meaningless abstract. The only way freedom can be rationally viewed is in its pure, no compromise form: human freedom — the freedom of each individual to do as he pleases, so long as he does not commit aggression against others.
Politicians love to talk about freedom, even while telling us how they intend to further enslave us. They do this by manufacturing “rights” out of thin air. The problem is that all artificially created rights are anti-freedom, because in order to fulfill one person’s rights (read, desires), another person’s rights must be violated. That is precisely what is meant by the infamous statement, “Someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so someone else can have more.”
The reality is that those who harbor such twisted thinking are actually opposed to liberty. Often, they are individuals who are unable to achieve success in a free society, thus they yearn for an external force (government) to “level the playing field” and equalize results. These are the people whose votes the liberal fascists in Washington continue to vie for.
If you’ve now reached the point where you realize that “change we can believe in” was nothing more than a code phrase for socialism, you hopefully understand that true freedom means freedom for the “poor,” freedom for the “rich,” freedom for the “weak,” and freedom for the “strong.” Human freedom means freedom for everyone.
Think about this as the 2010 candidates begin stepping up their promises to fulfill artificially created rights. Everything in life has a price, and, make no mistake about it, the price of artificially created rights is bondage — the exchange of your natural rights for government-created rights.
Before voting, everyone should look in the mirror and ask himself, “Is that what I really want for me and my children?” Let’s hope that in a majority of cases the answer is a resounding no.
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ROBERT RINGER is a New York Times #1 bestselling author and host of the highly acclaimed Liberty Education Interview Series, which features interviews with top political, economic, and social leaders. Ringer has appeared on numerous national talk shows and has been the subject of feature articles in such major publications as Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron’s, and The New York Times. To sign up for his one-of-a-kind, pro-liberty e-letter, A Voice of Sanity in an Insane World, visit www.RobertRinger.com
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ROBERT RINGER is a New York Times #1 bestselling author and host of the highly acclaimed Liberty Education Interview Series, which features interviews with top political, economic, and social leaders. He has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, The Tonight Show, Today, The Dennis Miller Show, Good Morning America, The Lars Larson Show, ABC Nightline, and The Charlie Rose Show, and has been the subject of feature articles in such major publications as Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron's, and The New York Times.
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Dear Robert,
I’d be very intrested in your comments of The Children’s Story by James Clavell. If you haven’t read it, I would highly recommend it…
James Clavell, the author of Nobel House and Shogun presents a chilling tale of how patriotism can be reshaped in a person’s mind with a few simple and resonable explanations. Both disturbing and enthralling, this short and stunning story asks many questions, yet leaves the answers up to the reader.
It was a simple incident in the life of James Clavell — a talk with his young daughter just home from school — that inspired this chilling tale of what could happen in twenty-five quietly devastating minutes. He writes, “The Children’s Story came into being that day. It was then that I really realized how vulnerable my child’s mind was — any mind, for that matter — under controlled circumstances. Normally I write and rewrite and re-rewrite, but this story came quickly — almost by itself. Barely three words were changed. It pleases me greatly because I kept asking the questions….
Questions like, What’s the use of ‘I pledge allegiance’ without understanding? Like Why is it so easy to divert thoughts? Like What is freedom? and Why is so hard to explain?
The Children’s Story keeps asking me all sorts of questions I cannot answer. Perhaps you can–then your child will….”
Sincerely,
Jackie E
Thanks for writing such a nice article that shows the apostasy of those who have turned their backs on the very freedoms that permitted their success. It pains me to see so many people unconcerned about God, America, and our freedoms. As Ronald Reagan said, “This irreconcilable conflict is between those who believe in the sanctity of individual freedom and those who believe in the supremacy of the state.”
Keep up the great work!
Great article, Robert. Kurt Vonnegut wrote a great short story years ago about equality run amok. You can read it at http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html.
Years ago, I thought it was great but absurd. These days, I find it chilling how plausible it seems. Same with Fahrenheit 451 and 1984. The pendulum has swung farther than I had ever imagined it could.
Just before reading today’s column, I heard a host on a classical radio station tell the following joke after he had played some Russian composers. He said Soviet citizens told it among themselves. It seems apropos of Mr. Ringer’s “definition” column today.
Q. What is capitalism?
A. Capitalism is when man exploits man.
Q. What is communism?
A. Communism is the other way around.
Reality bites as nature is in fact not kind and definitely not altruistic.
Too many people preferred unrealistic man-made illusions to the hard and stark economic facts of dealing with hard world realities. Some people, like most Hollywood actors, live in a psychological fantasy land where reality is denied and fantasy is encouraged.
Establishing and maintaining a society that lives in freedom means some people are going to be “hurt” because they refuse to work hard, be individually responsible for their actions, have personal integrity to positive ethics and morals, be self disciplined,
and live within their financial means.
The first step in restoring some positive and goal oriented direction is admitting one is lost. As a society, we are undeniably lost and must refuse to allow political and business demagogues and sophists from continuing to lead us all down the path of eventual individual collective destruction.
Our society and economy are what they are now;
Critically bad and getting worse by the day.
Are we going to continue to deny reality or are we going to acknowledge the hard reality of our past and present transgressions and take root cause remedial action?
Business leaders say Obama’s economic policies stifle growth
By Lori Montgomery
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
The chairman of the Business Roundtable, an association of top corporate executives that has been President Obama’s closest ally in the business community, accused the president and Democratic lawmakers Tuesday of creating an “increasingly hostile environment for investment and job creation.”
Ivan G. Seidenberg, chief executive of Verizon Communications, said that Democrats in Washington are pursuing tax increases, policy changes and regulatory actions that together threaten to dampen economic growth and “harm our ability . . . to grow private-sector jobs in the U.S.”
“In our judgment, we have reached a point where the negative effects of these policies are simply too significant to ignore,” Seidenberg said in a lunchtime speech to the Economic Club of Washington. “By reaching into virtually every sector of economic life, government is injecting uncertainty into the marketplace and making it harder to raise capital and create new businesses.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/22/AR2010062205279.html
Interesting that you mention this project of Damon’s. It’s based on Howard Zinn’s “Peoples’ History of the United States”. Damon was a student of Zinn’s, and this was a pet project for years. I’ll give the actor props for investing so much of himself, his time, his energy, and his money into such a non-commercial venture. But, as you point out so well, Zinn’s (and Damon’s) view of freedom is pretty much 180 degrees from many of us.
I started to watch the show when it ran on The History Channel, and I lasted 7 minutes (I actually checked the clock). That’s when the first outright, boldfaced lie came up. They claimed that the writers of the Constitution changed Jefferson’s idea in the Declaration of Independance that we are endowed by the Creator to the rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happinesse” to the rights of “life, liberty, and property,” and that this somehow betrayed Jefferson’s meaning.
Sorry, but in a 100 level history course in a small liberal arts college (which I’m sure did not have the resources available to Zinn, Damon, and the other denizens of Hahvad, but was blessed with a number of professors who actually based their courses on factual history)I learned that Jefferson is the one who changed the words. The rights of life, liberty, and property were fundamental in the thinking of the French philisophes, who had so much impact on the intellectual lives of the Founding Fathers. And to Jefferson, and the other founders, the right to the pursuit of happiness and the right to property were one and the same. It wasn’t the framers of the Constitution who wanted to change meanings, it was Zinn, Damon, and their ilk. And you’ll never convince me that they didn’t know they were deliberately misrepresenting the facts.