Mr. Moderate

One of the mantras that Republicans share with libertarians (many of whom are also Republicans) is that the economy is not free, and the United States would be far better off if all restraints were removed from the market. This is the idea of a “free market economy,” otherwise known as “laissez-faire capitalism.” The main problem with the Republican and libertarian idea of a free market economy is that any such of a market isn’t really at all free. Instead, the market is controlled by the large well-capitalized business operations, and ordinary consumers become objects to be milked of money to provide profits (wealth) for the business owners.

Some of the propaganda put out by the Republican/libertarian propaganda machine asserts that since the socialist/communist system is so obviously extremely bad, the Republican/libertarian “free market” system must just as obviously be extremely good. Unfortunately, that just is not the case. As with the political spectrum itself, where both extreme left-wing and extreme right-wing political movements are clearly bad, so too is any sort of extreme economical position also very bad. As in politics, the moderate middle is where most people want and ought to want the system to be centered.

The idea of “liberty” or “freedom” is another false end goal. The words “liberty” and “freedom” mean that I can do whatever it pleases me to do. If it happens to please me to go out and murder representatives of my political opponents, such as Jim Adkisson did at the Unitarian church in Knoxville, TN, then there is nobody who can say I did wrong if I have total freedom to do whatever I please to do. You can only have total freedom if you are prepared to live in total isolation. If you want to live in proximity with other human beings, and if you want to pass on your genes or memes to future generations, then you must be prepared to live in a society which has adequate rules to protect its members from each other. From the remotest ancient jungle tribe to the most-sophisticated modern society, every group of humans enforces rules which enhance the overall survivability of the group as a whole.

Very few people have possessed anything even remotely resembling absolute liberty or total freedom. Those who did were referred to as “absolute monarchs,” or kings. And those who freely exercised their liberties were thought of as despotic rulers who deserved to be assassinated or otherwise removed from power. Humans do not think kindly of those who would use us as their own personal and private play toys. It is a matter of logic to realize that there cannot ever be more than one totally free person at any given point in time, and that such a person will be utterly despised by the rest of humanity. This exemplification of total liberty or total freedom clearly demonstrate that those ideals are bad for humanity, and thus they are false goals for any political system to work towards.

Once again, the best option lies someplace in the middle, between extreme liberty and freedom for at least one person (on the one hand) and total slavery for everybody else (on the other hand). The Republican/libertarian mantra that they are offering everybody their own personal liberty and freedom is a huge lie. Such a goal cannot ever be realized, for reasons explained above. Again, the only way for any person to achieve total liberty or total freedom would be for that person to live in total isolation from all other human beings. If there are just two individuals that exist in close enough proximity to each other, then those two individual humans will need a set of rules to govern their social relationship and their interactions with each other on those occasions where they might desire to intrude into each other’s own personal space. The more people who are involved, and the more complex the human society might be, the larger the number of required rules to ensure that we can all just manage to get along somehow.

However, we must guard against imposing more rules than are absolutely necessary. People seem to have a sense when a rule is unjust and any unjust rule(s) create at least an expectation that such rule(s) ought to be changed. Too many such rules and the people will be on the path towards open revolt. The great claim of democracy is that the people will get no more rules than the majority are willing to tolerate. Unfortunately, when consent to rule changes is manufactured using propaganda, the seeds of revolt are once again sewn, because sooner or later, the truth of the matter will be discovered. People get angry when they discover they have been lied to for their own detriment and the benefit of others. For a number of years now, the Republican/libertarian alliance has succeeded in channeling that anger into political action against Democrats/liberals. But I cannot help but believe that, sooner or later, the chickens will come home to roost.