Freedom's Just Another Word ....

Media Czech has been relentlessly pounding the Rand Paul "Liberty" beat for months now, holding up to well-deserved ridicule the Paulbots' empty bleating of a word that doesn't mean what they think it means.

In May, Anonymous Liberal exposed the anti-freedom truth of their philosophy:

While libertarians claims to be driven by a goal of maximizing freedom, what they mean by "freedom" is not what most people take that word to mean. To a libertarian, the only freedom that really matters is freedom from government intrusion. But often, meaningful freedom can only be created through government intervention.

Take education, for example. The existence of a public school system greatly enhances freedom by giving everyone the opportunity to get at least a basic education and opening the doors that go along with that. Similarly, without a social safety net (government programs like Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, unemployment insurance, etc.) people would literally starve or die of from lack of medical care and extreme poverty would be epidemic. This isn't conjecture. This was the reality before these programs were put in place. That's not "freedom" in any meaningful sense.

Indeed, in the health care context, I am continually perplexed by the suggestion that universal health care somehow inhibits freedom, rather than enhancing it. How liberating would it be to know that you could do whatever you choose from an employment perspective and not have to worry that you or your family will be denied access to health care? How liberating would it be to know that there's no risk that illness or injury will unexpectedly derail your dreams and bankrupt you? Even if the only freedom you care about is entrepreneurial freedom, how can it be denied that lack of universal health care discourages people from taking entrepreneurial risks, that there are people out there who would love to quit their jobs and start a business but can't because they would lose access to affordable health insurance?

Similarly, government spending on roads, transportation systems, and other infrastructure increases our physical freedom to move around and enjoy our physical environment. Government spending on law enforcement reduces crime and enhances our freedom from a physical security standpoint. Government regulation of industry keeps the air that we breath and the water we drink clean and the food and drugs we ingest safe. It gives us the freedom to enjoy our physical environment and partake of the myriad of products and services available to us without fear and without significant risk to our well-being. These are all very liberating things. I don't know about you, but my conception of freedom is not a world where I can't get a breath of fresh air, can't swim, fish or enjoy the outdoors because of pollution, and am constantly playing Russian roulette every time I go to the grocery store.

I realize there are tradeoffs with everything, that in exchange for these freedom-enhancing benefits, I have to pay a little more in taxes and deal with a little more red tape if I want to do business. But libertarians seem to deny that there is any tradeoff going on; they seem to think that freedom is only a factor on one side of the equation. The reality is that lawmaking involves balancing freedoms. Any law that enhances freedom in one way will almost always reduce freedom in another. Businesses are no longer free to discriminate, but that's okay, because everyone is now free to eat where they want, shop where they want, and seek employment without fear of being unfairly discriminated against. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, on balance, greatly enhanced personal freedom. That Rand Paul can't see this is a function of the bizarre ideological blinders he has on.

And that's not even counting the hypocrisy.