Signs of Our Disease
Posted in Power to the People by R Lee Wrights on September 3rd, 2006 by BetteRose Ryan
My sister, when she was state chairman of the Colorado Libertarian Party, wrote a column about salt-water snow. It was interesting in that it has to be very cold indeed for salt water to freeze and become snow. Throughout her column she referred to things happening around us, wondering how cold do our freedoms have to become before we get up in arms. It occurred to me that just in my lifetime, not only has technology accelerated, but so has the loss of our freedoms.
When I was a young girl in school, we studied about the feudal system. We were told how awful it was, how the serfs had to yield up to 25% of what they grew or created to the lord and his knights. This of course was given for protection against raiders and space within the castle walls if that became necessary. Today, we - as a ‘free’ people - give more than 50% of our earnings up to those who govern us!
Later in life, I met a man from the Czech Republic. He told me of his life there. I found it truly amazing that people had to ask permission from the government to get a different job. There was actually a process of getting the current employer to agree to let you go and your future employer agreeing to hire you. The government then gave written papers approving the move. I shook my head. How can people live like that? Not ten years later, I went to get a second job and found I had to get a government ID to prove the employer had the government’s permission to hire me! How soon will it be before I won’t be able to quit my job without permission from the government?
This man also told me about how traveling papers were required if he wanted to visit his girlfriend because she lived in a different town. I could not imagine having to ask permission and get documents just to go to another town. Yet, just three years ago, a friend of mine said she couldn’t pick up a train ticket for her husband. The train company required him to present his government issued ID! First the airplanes, than the trains, and I’ve heard they are starting with buses, all requiring government issued IDs for travel! When will we be forced to carry traveling papers with us at all times? Remember, Americans of Hispanic decent who live in border states already have to do this.
I remember, growing up, that Russia was a big scary place. The government there could arrest someone for speaking out against it. It could arrest and hold someone without charges, never letting them see their families, without lawyers. The U.S. was so much freer! Then, the Patriot Act passed in this country. And the War on Terrorism brought ‘terrorist detainees.”
China, in just the decades past, crushed all political speech. Protests were either not allowed or were very controlled. How lucky we were in this country, to be able to raise our voices in protest, to wave our signs in front of our elected officials! Then, I discovered the newly developed “free speech zones.” I even watched as a friend of mine was arrested for not leaving the area. Why was he asked to move from the area when others were allowed to stay? Because he was wearing a T-shirt with the ‘wrong’ political message on it. He wasn’t even making any noise! What was the T-Shirt’s message that was so scary to our President’s security team? The letters TRT on the front and the words “Tyranny Response Team” on the back of it was enough to take the man to jail.
The truth of the matter is, these changes are not the worst. These changes can be seen. They are like the dying toes of a diabetic; only the most visible sign of a disease that is systemic and deadly. It is the changes which are slow and insidious, changes which have been happening for decades, that will finally take our freedom. Those small changes are signs of the belief, by Americans, that a group of elected men and women can somehow protect us from all harm - from being poor to dying - if we just give them the power to do so. As this belief continues to grow, our country will continue to falter. While we must combat the immediate and obvious threat, it is of the utmost importance that we address the underlying disease.
Kent McManigal said,
September 3, 2006 @ 4:15 pm
You hit the nail on the head; and drove it completely through the board. Excellent! Thank you.
Kent
Vern Trumbly said,
September 5, 2006 @ 12:23 pm
I’ve only recently come to the Libertarian viewpoint, and am still learning how insidiously our so called government has worked to remove our freedoms. What you have written has opened my yes even further to how far down that road we have gone. I’ve seen many articles which give excellent descriptions of repressed or stolen freedoms, but yours has, as Kent said, “hit the nail on the head” and driven the point home to me. Thank you for a truly eye-opening article.
Vern
tomd said,
September 5, 2006 @ 8:55 pm
Yeah, I really liked it too. It points out something that we tend to forget, and that is that statism (a reflexive resort to government as the exclusive solver of all problems) is everywhere, all over the world, and pretty much always has been. It’s always trying to worm its way into every society via any pretext whatever. No one, including America, is immune.
IMHO there are certain core myths of statism, and one of them is basically this:
Without government, we would be running around wild - killing each other right and left. This idea that we need the state to regulate us is at the bottom of many tyrannies. Forgotten is the inconvenient fact that we formed our government, it didn’t form us.
In other words, someone was magically able to survive the swirling gales of anarchy that supposedly must have existed, to create documents like the Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution. The question then becomes, if we need government so badly to keep us in line, then how did we ever manage to create it in the first place?
The answer is a core libertarian truth, but it’s much more than that, it is a fundamental truth about America, and that is we didn’t need to create government to keep us in line; we chose to create it for the express purpose of securing our rights, period. Now - anything our government does that goes against that core reason for its existence is in error, unconstitutional, and null and void. Not to mention that it simply won’t work properly either.
This is why the government screws up everything it touches. It isn’t because of Bush, or because of any persons or group of persons currently in charge. The problem is government itself being way too big and doing way too much stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with securing our rights.
Note to Vern Trumbly, check out these characters, they all bring something different to the table.
Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, Roderick Long, Adam Hamilton, Paul Craig Roberts, Anthony Gregory, Thomas Sowell.
I’m out
Tom deSabla
Kip Watson said,
September 12, 2006 @ 10:22 pm
Mate, I know *too much* about Libertarianism.
Libertarianism and Socialism are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee - they were completely opposed to each other too! And they were also complete opposites, in their own minds!
Libertarianism is a revolutionary ideology that seeks to overthrow our existing social and political structures — with all their expedients, compromises, vested interests — and replace them with Utopia. A single, simple philosophy, which of applied to all things will usher in the perfect world (but not before it wrecks the world we already have) — where have I heard that before? That’s right - Socialism!
It’s definitely seductive!
Kip Watson said,
September 12, 2006 @ 11:13 pm
(( Something odd with the timestamps on my comments — wrong order ))
Kip Watson said,
September 13, 2006 @ 1:23 am
Libertarianism is a seductive ideology, but is basically built upon the same kind of myths, lies and selective historical blindness as its evil twin, Socialism.
How am I made more free by being denied the right to shape the moral landscape of my community? Legal prostitution, rampant porn and a drug pusher outside every high school, how does that increase my liberty?
It doesn’t, so much the Libertarian ideology applied to social policies.
What about in the matter of economics? How about those Ruskies? Were they made more free by the fanatical market-forces libertarian policies of the Yeltsen years? Or at the moment of their emancipation did the corrupt elites sell out the hard won freedom of their long-suffering people to criminals? They simply exchanged one set of gangster overlords for another.
That is pure economic libertarianism. Don’t wish for it.
R. Lee Wrights said,
September 13, 2006 @ 1:57 am
Kip says: \”Libertarianism is a seductive ideology, but is basically built upon the same kind of myths, lies and selective historical blindness as its evil twin, Socialism.\”
You obviously have no idea what Libertarianism is really all about. It is about as far away from Socialism as you can get! The two philosophies are diametrically opposed to each other. They are opposites!