On "Freedoms"
Over at HuffPo, there’s a piece up that’s actually pro Ron Paul. I made a dire mistake though, and read some of the comments. Before I could stop myself, I was hitting the reply button in response to this gem:
I can admire Ron Paul for his candor and consistency. I don’t think there’s a political bone in his body, unlike the othe [sic] snakes on that stage. The man says what he means.
And I agree with his stance on the wars.
On everything else I loathe his policies. He wants to dismantle the government, which is the only mechanism We The People have to pool our collective resources as a nation and to protect ourselves from Corporate tyranny. He defines freedom as freedom of the wealthy to do whatever the hell they want without any restrictions or responsibility as citizens. Whites only lunch counters, anyone?
In Ron Paul world, if you want access to the ideals of the US Constitution you have to purchase them. Freedom from want, freedom from hunger, freedom from discrimination, freedom from fear, freedom from servitude – these are only available to the rich and powerful.
Ugh. Several errors to go after there, all of which would take up a blog post, but I focused on his concept of “freedoms”:
Only one of those is an actual freedom. People have a confused definition of freedom (and rights), because they use the word with different meanings, and then conflate the meanings as interchangeable.
The first four are totally impossible “freedoms.”
Freedom from want? At its face this is absurd. The human condition is want. Every action we take is an attempt to relieve some felt unease, to further our conditions and improve our lives. To not want is to not act. It is a state of perfect contentedness. It is impossible.
Freedom from hunger sounds good, but who is to provide it? If this were a real right, everyone could simultaneously enjoy it. If you’re lost at sea with no land visible for miles, you’re likely to get hungry. How are you to enjoy this “right” or “freedom” to not be hungry then? It is clearly not possible.
Discrimination… We discriminate with every action we take, every day, choosing one over another. When interviewing for a job we discriminate against unskilled or inept applicants in favor of hard-working and intelligent applicants. We discriminate when we buy groceries, picking the cereal that suits us best in terms of cost, flavor and nutrition, over those which are less adequate. Sure, I know you mean against race, sex, or whatever else… But where exactly does it end? There will always be discrimination based on something, it is our very nature to identify more satisfactory over less satisfactory.
These are all what are called “positive rights.” A positive right is one which obligates another to do something on their behalf. One which requires another to give them special treatment, or permits someone to take from another. By definition they cannot apply to everyone equally.
Positive rights are not rights at all. They are fantasies, hopeful visions of perfect equality and utopia in which there is no scarcity, and no human flaws.
All true rights are negative rights. That means they do not require another to act, they just prohibit one from aggressing against another; from initiating violence against their fellow man.
Which brings us to your last freedom. Freedom from servitude. That one, you nailed. That’s a real freedom, a true right. No one has the right to enslave you, to force you to do things against your will, to take from you that which is not theirs. Yet this is the very definition of government, and exactly what Ron Paul is trying to fight.
Unfortunately, the full thing wouldn’t fit so I had to trim it down rather a lot. You got the director’s edition.
Posted by wobbles on Friday, September 16, 2011