Artificial Rights vs Freedom

Posted on September 14, 2017 by Robert Ringer

Font:

Now that the Radical Left is in full control of the Democratic Party, it’s no surprise that spread-the-wealth advocates like Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Cory Booker have jumped at the chance to co-sponsor Uncle Bernie’s single-payer healthcare bill.  All of them like to refer to it as “Medicare for All,” which takes an astonishing amount of chutzpah, considering the fact that Medicare is going broke!

Harris, ignorantly believing she’s helping her 2020 presidential bid by jumping on board the single-payer bandwagon, made her position clear when she said, “This is about understanding, again, that healthcare should be a right, not a privilege.”  It goes without saying that, in true left-wing fashion, she made no attempt to explain why healthcare should be a right.  But when you’re a Democrat, such details are inconsequential.

Of course, free healthcare is just the tip of the iceberg if socialists have their way.  With the Radical Left on the march toward finishing Barack Obama’s clearly stated goal of fundamentally changing the United States of America, it’s a good time for all of us to take a step back and think about the subject of freedom, the commodity for which so many Americans have given their lives.

Just about everyone claims to be in favor of freedom, but few seem to agree on what the word actually it means.  Which is why one person’s idea of freedom often violates 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.  Thus, each person believes 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.

Then there are those who believe job quotas for minority groups promote freedom.  But to a person who is anti-discriminatory in the truest sense of the word, quotas and seniority considerations are a violation of freedom.

Based on the evidence, then, 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 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 people talk about freedom, they have a tendency to think in terms of freedom for themselves and, quite often, a license to do as they please to others.

Also, since time immemorial, utopian thinkers have confused freedom with equality, but nothing could be further from the truth.  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.’’

That is why, as governments step up their attempts to defy nature and bring about equality, they find it necessary to employ force.  And when force enters the picture, it’s a certainty that some people are going to come under the control of others.

It is therefore not surprising that when people espouse freedom, more often than not they are referring to their freedom, not yours.  Worse, you’re likely to 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 for 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 and babbling endlessly about how they intend to fulfill them.

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.  So when folks like Kamela Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Bernie Sanders talk about healthcare being a right, they never bother to mention the rights of the millions of people who would have their rights violated in order to provide “free” healthcare to others.

All this brings back nauseous memories of Michelle Obama’s telltale statement back in 2008, to wit:  “Someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so someone else can have more.”  People who believe in such tyrannical ideas are clearly opposed to a free society.  In reality, what they yearn for is an external force (government) to “level the playing field” and equalize results.

They do not understand that true freedom means freedom for the “poor,” freedom for the “rich,” freedom for the “oppressed,” freedom for the powerful.”  Simply put, human freedom means freedom for everyone.

With the 2018 and 2020 elections on the horizon, it’s a good time to start thinking about human freedom and keeping in mind that whenever politicians promise to fulfill this or that artificially created right, they are advocating the use of force against some portion of the population.

The rule is simple:  Everything in life has a price, and the price of artificially created rights is bondage.

Robert Ringer

Robert Ringer is an American icon whose unique insights into life have helped millions of readers worldwide. He is also the author of two New York Times #1 bestselling books, both of which have been listed by The New York Times among the 15 best-selling motivational books of all time.