The implication is always clear:
“It’s just freedom.”
There
is a plethora of “reasons” people offer for abandoning liberty and its
essential requirements. We hear about them endlessly in the media, in
our schools, and in social gatherings across the nation.
“I abhor the very thought of homosexuals getting married. It creeps me out.”
So, ban it. After all...
“It’s just freedom.”
“I feel that it is immoral to sell body parts. It’s sick.”
So, ban it. After all...
“It’s just freedom.”
“I
resent all those foreigners coming here and taking our jobs. I hate
them. Immigration, especially illegal immigration, is destroying our
culture.”
So, ban it. After all...
“It’s just freedom.”
“No living, breathing, thinking person should ever, ever hold a gun. They scare me. A gun is evil.”
So, ban it. After all...
“It’s just freedom.”
“Drugs
like marijuana and cocaine and heroin and meth are deadly substances.
Users disgust me. No good can ever come from taking a recreational
drug.”
So, ban it. After all...
“It’s just freedom.”
The fallacies run rampant: Appeals to emotion. Ad hominem
attacks. Straw man arguments. Subjectivism. Appeals to majority. False
alternative. Appeal to tradition. Anything and everything to avoid
adhering to principles or evidence or logic or consistency.
Irrationality? A-OK. Reason? Verboten.
Consider
any debate between lovers of freedom who believe in facts and
objectivity and real argumentation and statists and collectivists who
adopt the shotgun approach and hope that something — somehow — hits the
target. If that doesn’t work, shift to the kitchen sink approach and
throw in whatever random thought or tangential connection pops into
their muddled heads.
Ask
a freedom lover how the government should manage health care, and he’ll
tell you that the State has no legitimate basis for interfering in the
choices adults make; that such intrusion is a violation of rights; that
State interference hurts the poor the most, the very people it claims
to be helping; that the free market will deliver health care more
cheaply and efficiently; that there is no Constitutional authority for
the State to act on this issue; that charities can help those unable to
pay; that liberty respects an individual’s autonomy, rewards prudent
behavior, and punishes rash decisions.
Turn
to a statist and collectivist, however, and what do you hear? People
are dying because they are denied health care! What about Sam who had
to choose between saving a finger or a thumb? People have a basic right
to medical care, simply because they exist. Doctors and insurance and
drug companies don’t care. They simply exploit the poor while lining
their pockets at others’ expense. People have to choose between food
and medicine. The elderly have to eat dog food to survive. People
should come before profits! How can you be so heartless and cruel? You
must hate poor people.
Hmm...
But who cares? After all...
It’s just freedom.
Perhaps education?
For the freedom lover, repeat above, substituting “education” for “health care.”
For
the statist and collectivist: No parents will educate their kids if
they aren’t forced to! You can’t have choice in education. It’ll
destroy our wonderful public schools! Our public schools are in
horrible shape! We need more money! Teachers are underpaid. They need
more money! We need to raise taxes to pay for upkeep on our schools!
Students receive a great education! We need more money because test
scores are dropping! We have wonderful computer labs, the latest
technology, the most caring teachers. We need more money! You want to
get rid of public schools? Well, I support education. It’s obvious you do not.
Double hmm...
But who cares? After all...
It’s just freedom.
The environment?
Pretty
much ditto for that lonely freedom guy. For the statist corner: The
world is dying! We’re all doomed! We need to force people to give up
their X (X = SUVs, TVs, big houses, a/c, heating, water, computers,
etc.) and be forced to Y (Y = recycle, buy less, live closer together,
use public transportation, walk, consume less, etc.) Reduce your carbon
footprint! Those who disagree hate humanity! Humans are destroying the
world! The earth would be better off without their existence!
* SIGH *
But who cares? After all...
It’s just freedom.
Pick
your topic: racism and discrimination; sexual harassment or
discrimination; glass ceilings; DDT and pesticides; “organic” food (as
opposed to what? inorganic
good. Sheesh.); “fair” trade vs free trade; solar vs nuclear energy;
price control and “gouging”; minimum wages; outsourcing; ethanol;
sweatshops; farm subsidies; poor people, er, excuse me: “poverty”:
criminals, er, excuse me: “crime”: violent people, er, excuse me:
“violence” (especially “gun” violence); taxes; obesity; fast food;
school prayer; etc. etc. etc.
How to deal with all these and other issues?
Ditto for Freedom Fan.
Statist
Soul: You’re this! You’re that! I just know better! It’s for your own
good! You can’t be trusted! I feel badly about X. That means I really
care, and you don’t! You’re a cold, heartless, unemotional, uncaring
@#$%&!!! How dare you disagree with me!
But who cares? After all...
It’s just freedom.
The
statists and collectivists may occasionally give lip service to
“freedom” or “rights” or “justice.” But deep down where it counts, they
simply...do...not...care. “Feeling” takes precedence over thinking.
Prejudice takes precedence over principle. The majority takes
precedence over the individual.
It’s all too common a scenario.
Sadly
— shockingly — even far too many self-professed promoters of freedom
are — at their core — no different than these more obvious defenders of
the omnipotent State, willing to sell out freedom for the cheapest of
tarnished coins.
The
basics of freedom are neither complicated nor difficult to understand.
While full justification for these principles cannot be given here, any
adult who is committed to freedom must accept two things:
1. Each person’s life belongs to him.
2. Each person’s property belongs to him.
While
these two statements can conceptually be separated, in reality, they
are part and parcel of the same package. As Ayn Rand said, without
property rights, there are no other rights. People are not ghosts. They
must earn and utilize property in order to exist, let alone prosper. As
Rand said, “The right to life is the source of all rights — and the
right to property is their only implementation.” (“Man’s Rights, The Virtue of Selfishness, p. 94.)
“My life belongs to me” means that no one — no one — has a right to interfere in any aspect of my life that does not interfere with the rights of another person. No one — no one — has a right to even one second of my life without my permission. No one — no one
— has the right to force me to act against my own best judgment...even
if what I am doing is self-destructive (immoral) (yet
non-rights-violating).
“My property belongs to me” means that I
— and no one else — can decide how to use, misuse, or abuse any
property that I have earned or been freely given by another individual.
As Rand said, “...the right to property is a right to action...” “It is
the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values.” (VOS,
p. 94.) My right to my property applies to “any material element or
resource which, in order to become of use or value to men, requires the
application of human knowledge and effort...” (“The Property Status of
Airwaves,” Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, p. 122.) All property rights are individual. “Public” property is an anti-concept without real meaning.
If someone seeks — by coercive force — to prevent me from exercising my right to control any
of my property — in any way that I see fit — then that person is also
and simultaneously violating my right to my own life. There are no
exceptions to this. Zero. Nada. Zilch. To violate property rights for
even the “best” of reasons or intentions is to violate my life. One
cannot exist without the other. There is no dichotomy, no separation,
no metaphysical distinction. One might as well argue that he can seize
control of my heart but not seize control of my life. It’s a package
deal. One right is not superior to the other. Property rights are not
inferior to my right to my life.
To
force me to use my property as another decides is to steal my property.
To force me to live my life as another decides is to enslave me. What
property or how much of my life is seized does not matter. A principle
once broken ceases to be a principle. It becomes merely a matter of
“convenience.”
Property
rights are what make civilized society possible. They define and
delimit what aspects of the world any particular person controls. They
determine when a crime occurs. They establish a boundary around each
individual that no one else may cross without that other’s voluntary
consent.
No one — no one — has ever demonstrated any principled reasoning to dispute these facts.
What
recently opened my eyes to how drearily far we have yet to go to
establish freedom in this world came to light in the aftermath of two
deaths that occurred at nearly the same time. One was the death of an
animal: a dog. The other was the death of an infant: a two-year-old
baby. Both deaths were essentially identical. A police dog was left in
a car by a cop for fifteen hours on a hot day. The baby was left in a
car by her mother for eight hours in temperatures up to 150 degrees.
The cop was charged with a misdemeanor. The mother was not charged, at
all.
On
a libertarian discussion list, the savage call for the cop’s hide rang
loud and clear: Fry him! Charge him with murder! Execute him! Stick him
in the back of the car and let him die in misery like his dog!
Even
a relatively well-known libertarian (well-known among libertarians,
anyway...) hoped the cop would go to jail and suffer as the dog had
suffered.
The
emotionalistic screeches of these supposed supporters of liberty echoed
similar calls for blood I’ve heard from the statists at PETA. Even
though PETA members have killed many of the very animals they claim to
defend, they have promoted the nonsensical notion that nonhuman animals
have rights. Indeed, in one California city, pet owners are now no
longer “owners.” They are just pet “guardians.”
Animal
“rights” activists attack property rights (and thus, human rights) by
pushing for the legal recognition of animal “rights” for pigs; by
comparing the death of the chickens we eat to the Holocaust in which
millions of humans were murdered; by claiming that there is no real
difference between a rat or a pig or a boy; by pushing for protection
for “endangered” animal species at the expense of property owners; and
by promoting laws against “animal cruelty.” Even though an editor once
told me he did not think the push for animal “rights” was any big deal,
anyone who campaigns for animal “rights” is attacking the very
foundations of human rights.
While
not all the anarchists I read jumped on the anti-liberty bandwagon,
those who realized there are pro-freedom ways to deal with such
objectionable behavior were basically ignored or overwhelmed by the
noise of those who just knew that the cop deserved far worse legal treatment than he was getting.
True,
since the cop did not own the dog, that muddied the waters (as happens
any time “public” property is involved). But even when I made the more
general case against animal cruelty laws, the emotional venting
continued unabated.
(Non-wild)
animals are property. Animals have no rights because they do not have
free will nor a conceptual-level consciousness nor use for a moral
code. “Rights” are relevant only in a social context for delineating
how individuals can implement their chosen morality. Without those
requirements, it is a category error to even mention “rights” in the
context of nonhuman animals. If an animal has no rights, it cannot have
its rights violated. For animals, in general, this issue is not even close to being a borderline situation.
Cruelty to humans is morally and legally wrong because we have a right to our own lives. Cruelty to animals is indeed morally wrong...but it should not be a legal issue (as
long as the animal belongs to the abuser). (At most the cop in question
should have been charged with destruction of “public” property or
dereliction of duty or criminal negligence or some such. But “animal
cruelty”...no. Never.)
The
same reasoning applies to the recent case of men involved in dog
fights. Fire those involved, perhaps, boycott them, ostracize them,
shame them, argue with them...but don’t charge them with a crime or
fine or jail them.
Only actions that violate the rights of human beings should be subject to legal sanction.
That
is the only realm that is of concern to a properly restrained State.
Any step it takes beyond that boundary is a violation of freedom and
rights.
Just
because some folks find certain (non-rights-violating) behavior X to be
repugnant or obnoxious or disgusting or reprehensible does not mean it
should be legally prohibited or punished. That is precisely the kind of
“justification” used by the vast majority of statists and collectivists
who condemn consensual “crimes” or declare without apology that the
State should “legislate
morality.” Those calls for control of noncriminal behavior are even
more vicious and disgusting and cowardly when coming from people who say they believe in freedom.
Oddly
enough, many of these same individuals made excuses for the mother
whose choices led to her daughter’s cruel death. But grant the cop any
leeway? Hell, no! Some tried to divert the issue by saying they just
wanted the cop to suffer as a non-cop would.
But
those engaged in the lynch mob mentality did not identify themselves as
“cop haters.” No. They described themselves as “animal lovers” and thus
justified in their sadistic calls for vengeance against the man whose
negligence led to the death of a dog. Their equal rejection of the more general case of someone hurting his own pet (his own property) cemented the truth behind their attempted verbal sleight-of-hand. No matter that the cop did not intentional forget about the dog. No quarter given. Of course, none who wanted the cop burned — because of a dead animal — felt equally inclined to demand that the mother be killed — even though she caused the death of a human, a helpless baby, at that.
It didn’t take long for the ad hominem
attacks to come because of my stance. One person compared me to an
Antebellum slave owner championing human slavery because I dared say
that animals can be property. Another person committed a straw man
fallacy when he claimed I rejected emotions or people’s “right” to feel
badly; the truth was I specifically stated that the use of emotions in
argumentation is fine but substituting
emotions for an argument is fallacious. The same fallacy appeared when
I was charged with the statement that people do not have an obligation to be moral, which, of course, they do.
The false alternative fallacy arose when it was implied that because I said a person has a right to do the wrong
thing with his property — even animals — I was defending animal abuse
as a perfectly legitimate practice. Another demonstrated subjectivism
because he felt
it should be illegal to be cruel to pets. Appeal to majority skipped in
when another poster said that “we” (the majority of the people on the
list) agreed that my position was wrong, therefore it was wrong. Even
an appeal to tradition fallacy popped up when someone said, well, it is and has been a crime to abuse animals, therefore it should be.
Ah.
The statists and collectivists would readily recognize and be proud of
these slimy tactics being utilized against an individual defending
human and property rights. They do it all the time with someone like
John Stossel who says the unvarnished truth the statists do not want to
hear.
Perhaps
the worst descent into anti-freedom territory came, however, when the
more prominent libertarian said that pets should not be “just
property.”
“It’s
just property.” Roll that statement around and feel the intimate
disdain for property dripping from its syllables. It’s merely property.
Pets/animals are not simply property. They are (somehow) better than, above property. They are too worthy
to be “just property.” They should not be considered as something as
lowly and unimportant as property. (Shades of PETA and pet
“guardians”...) Pets and animals should have “special” protection. A
human should not be allowed to treat his pet as “just property,” that
is, he should not be permitted to deal with his property as he sees fit, for good or ill. He does not have the right to treat an animal as “just property.” In other words, he does not have a right to his life, not when what he does with his life “upsets” someone.
After all:
“It’s just freedom.”
But,
of course, recognizing that pets and animals should be personal
property does not mean one does or should treat a pet the same as one
would a paper clip. One can and should rank his values. The vast
majority of people treat their property well. Indeed, the more valuable
the property, generally, the more care and attention is paid to that
property. After all, that property represents part of the owner’s life. My cat is very valuable to me, even though she has very little monetary
value. I go out of my way to treat her well, affectionately, almost
like a member of the family. I love my cat. I would likely defend her
far more vigorously than I would most strangers.
BUT SHE IS STILL MY PROPERTY.
I
get to decide what to do with her and how she is treated. Not PETA. Not
the State. Not my neighbors. Not animal lovers. Not a stranger. I decide. Me. (And my wife, of course, as co-owner...)
The person who objected to pets as property intoned that she would never forget about a pet in the car for such a long period of time. Maybe. Hopefully. But...
I’d wager strong odds that if one were to ask any parent in America, none
would say, “Oh, yeah. Sure. I can imagine forgetting about my helpless
baby and leaving him to broil in a car all day until she died.”
Right.
Accidents
happen. Stupid, negligent, forgetful, unintentional, sad things happen.
According to NBC News, in the past decade, about 340 babies died in hot
cars, forgotten by parents or guardians. Half of the people were
charged with crimes. But that means half were not.
This
is not to excuse the inexcusable. But it is astounding that so many
supposed freedom advocates would unabashedly call for jailing or
killing a human because his thoughtlessness led to the death of an animal, and not grant him anywhere close to the benefit-of-the-doubt afforded a mother whose mistakes killed a human baby.
Amazing. Frightening. Sickening.
These
points regarding individual rights and property rights should not even
be controversial, not to those who pretend to promote real freedom.
What those concepts mean and how they should be implemented form the
very basis of a free society.
Yet here is a group of...people...who should know better who are not only willing but eager to subvert the most important foundations of freedom so they can indulge and wallow in their wounded “feelings,” because it is their ox getting gored this time. They unashamedly pander
to the prejudice and irrationality and overblown emotions in themselves
and their ilk in a vicious way that precisely mirrors what the statists
and collectivists do all the time to force their wishes on those who disagree with and “offend” them; to control the dissenters; to punish the noncriminal; to impose their vision of morality on all, rights and freedom be damned.
Every would-be or actual demagogue that has or ever will exist just hopes and prays that his audience will react based on emotion rather than reason
as did so many of these titular “libertarians.” Whether it is fear or
anger or outrage or sadness involved, potential dictators applaud and
love such enemies of freedom who substitute their feelings for thought
and then brag about their “noble” betrayal to any who will listen.
Witnessing
how readily such sanctimonious individuals tossed aside bedrock
principles in order to massage their own bruised souls is
disheartening, discouraging, and disgusting.
After all. It’s not just property rights. It’s not just reason. It’s not just freedom. It’s not just my life.
