I am so radically conservative that I make many right-wing nut cases feel uncomfortable. I am so radically conservative that I bounce around to the other end of the spectrum, pick up a few liberal ideas, then move all the way back to the ultra-conservative region all over again. It’s like I’m playing political Pac Man. Go far enough to the right and you’ll end up on the left, heading right all over again. I am so conservative, I think the Constitution, for all its merit, may even have been a slight mistake. I ascribe myself more to the attitude set out in the second sentence of the United States Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Minus the whole wishy-washy part about this Creator character people have been obsessing over for thousands of years, I pretty much agree with that entire statement as being all we need to fairly govern the land.
After all, who would argue against the notion that the three rights they hold most dear are those of “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”? The problem is, somewhere along the line we forgot about these essential truths of human nature. We’ve made some progress remembering the value of the first part of that sentence—“that all men are created equal”—in the last hundred years or so and still have a long way to come. And nobody can deny that the US government allows us the right to life. If nothing else, in fact, we are forced to live; consider the official stance on euthanasia, for example. You don’t have the right to give up your own life. Yeah, good luck enforcing that.
But what of liberty and the pursuit of happiness? To me, these are really two sides of the same coin. How, after all, do they at all differ? Liberty is freedom to live one’s life as one chooses. I’m no lawyer, but that pretty much sounds to me like how I’ll pursue my personal version of happiness: By living my life however I choose.
So this brings me to my overall point of discussion for this piece. I am so radically conservative that the one entity in this world, in government, and in my life that I hold most sacred or of any worth whatsoever is my liberty. Without liberty, friends, family, loved ones, hobbies, passions, and education have no value. They may even become a curse. Now, our founding fathers eventually realized that pure liberty is essentially pure anarchy, so certain rules needed to be instated to explain precisely what liberty means for Americans. It cannot be equated with impunity, for example. I do not have the right to kill another person merely because it is the way I wish to live my life. So they drafted the next big piece of legislature, another famous document called the Constitution.
The point of the Constitution, at least at first, was essentially to define what liberty would mean under the US banner. In the end, the general consensus was that liberty is the freedom to live one’s life however one chooses, so long as one does not interfere with anyone else’s liberty. Simple enough, only a slight addendum to the previous definition of liberty, and a good one at that. So, the rights to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to bear arms, and other textbook Bill of Rights bits were set into writing and made the law of the land.
Since then, however, most of our liberties have gotten horribly screwed up. The old saying for American politics was “majority rule, minority right,” meaning that what the majority wants, the majority gets, so long as it does not affect the minority’s liberty. But this notion has long since been forgotten. Today, most laws are set by special interest groups hoping to push their worldviews on the rest of the country. They aren’t trying to protect their own liberty so much as preventing other peoples’ liberties from making them uncomfortable. Worse, many laws are influenced by powerful corporations and lobbyists whose sole goals are profit. They’ll restrict your liberties if your liberties restrict their cash flow. The list is endless, but here is a brief sample of some suspensions of minority liberty in this country as imposed by the “majority”:
- The definition of marriage is one man, one woman . . . because the majority says so. Nevertheless, there are plenty of people who disagree, but they are the minority and are not heard, even though their marrying would have no impact on the liberty of the majority. If two women wish to marry and raise a family, let them—it isn’t hurting your lemming-like suburbia, heterosexual lifestyle one bit. If multiple people all want to marry each other, so what? Defining marriage is like trying to define love, and I don’t know of a single philosopher who has successfully pulled that one off yet. So don’t kid yourself—you don’t know what I’m feeling anymore than I know what you’re feeling.
- Many drugs, most of which are less harmful than alcohol and tobacco, are illegal . . . because the majority say so. If I choose to smoke marijuana from the comfort of my own home and contemplate the meaning of life, that’s my prerogative. But because some closed-minded, brainwashed, paranoid idiots who have never even tried it believe marijuana is the devil’s weed, I am not allowed to enjoy the liberty of doing so, even though it will never harm them.
- Bars and restaurants that used to allow smoking are being forced to become non-smoking establishments . . . because the majority do not like second-hand smoke. Weren’t plenty of other eateries that were non-smoking already available to choose from? If you don’t want to be around smoke, then don’t hang out with smokers! But don’t tell a business it has no right to promote smokers to enjoy their perfectly legal drug of choice within their doors. If Joe Shmoe wants to smoke a butt while enjoying his Budweiser while out with his pals, let him . . . he’s not hurting anybody but people who are aware of the risk of being around it. Besides, if there weren’t a demand for smoking in these types of places, then why do most businesses after the switch report a drop in business? Now we’re hitting the economy hard, too.
- Prostitution is illegal . . . because the majority are against it. But if a person decides to offer a service for money, degrading and tasteless though some may find it, it is entirely that person’s decision. Making it illegal only puts these workers at risk for further health, safety, and financial issues. They aren’t committing violent crimes, they aren’t imposing on your liberty, so don’t impose on their liberty or the liberty of their clients.
- Evolution is being taught as if it were somehow in doubt in numerous school systems now throughout the country . . . because the majority believe in a book written (largely through startling acts of plagiarism and reworking of polytheistic myths) thousands of years ago saying an invisible man created the earth and all of its inhabitants in six days. Oh, and because they have no idea what the word “theory” actually means in a scientific context. Teaching creationism side-by-side with evolution in schools is just a sneaky way of cramming religious idiocy down young peoples’ throats, hoping to brainwash them in order to combat the current country-wide slump in Church attendance. Freedom of religion also entails freedom from religion if it is truly a liberty. Nobody has the right to skew scientific fact in favor of a religious agenda if liberty exists in its pure form.
The list is really endless. These are actually merely some of the biggest issues of concern to contemporary libertarians. It is a growing movement, predominantly young people, and it sends the signal to the government that we want our liberty and we want it now. The PATRIOT ACT especially revoked many key liberties once taken for granted in this country, and it did so in such a sneaky, clever, revolting way that only a politician could have figured out how to make it happen. We’re searching for “sophisticated, dangerous terrorists” in a desert halfway across the globe, but we don’t even notice the very real terrorists slowly stripping away the very aspect of life our founding fathers found most dear: our liberty.
The best way to combat the problem of loss of liberty, should you feel the way I do, is to talk to people about their liberties. Make these laws seem ridiculous. Ask your parents, your friends, your coworkers, how they would feel if a law were passed banning oranges because a great many people have suddenly decided they find oranges strangely offensive. Such a law would seem farcical, no? Well, that’s how anyone engaging in non-violent behavior that is currently illegal feels every minute of every day. We must force people to think about freedom in order for them to realize that it is disappearing and at risk. If we can band together to fight such hazy, widely misunderstood issues as climate change, then why can’t we tackle as simple a problem as the loss of liberty if we simply stick to our guns?
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