Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom (13 page)

For a little bit of reassurance—even with all the bad mistakes that contributed to the terrorist dangers—it is more likely an American will die from being hit by lightning than from a terrorist attack. I recognize this is a dangerous statement to make—surely there will be someone in Washington who will write legislation to declare a “war on lightning.”

Another way to put this danger in perspective is by noting that out of the 14,000 homicides committed in the United States last year, only fourteen were attributed to terrorism. Between 35,000 and 40,000 deaths occur every year on our government-owned and -operated highways, with minimal concern compared to the danger of terrorism.

Years ago, a member of Congress slipped a laminated quote into my hand that he must have thought I would find meaningful. I paid little attention at first and unfortunately I don’t recall just who gave me the quote. I placed it next to my voting card and have carried it ever since. The quote came from Elie Wiesel’s book
One Generation After
.
¹
The quote was entitled “Why I Protest.”

Author Elie Wiesel tells the story of the one righteous man of Sodom, who walked the streets protesting against the injustice of this city. People made fun of him, derided him. Finally, a young person asked: “Why do you continue your protest against evil; can’t you see no one is paying attention to you?” He answered, “I’ll tell you why I continue. In the beginning I thought I would change people. Today, I know I cannot. Yet, if I continue my protest, at least I will prevent others from changing me.”

I’m not that pessimistic that we can’t change people’s beliefs or that people will not respond to the message of liberty and peace. But we must always be on guard not to have others change us once we gain the confidence that we are on the right track in the search for truth.

Cicero lost his struggle to save the Roman Republic and was assassinated for his efforts. Though imperfect in his political career, he left a great legacy known to this day. He heroically refused to join Julius Caesar’s betrayal of the Roman constitution and the rule of law. Caesar’s personal triumph was solidified and he was appointed dictator for three years. Two years later he was appointed dictator for life and was assassinated soon afterward on the Ides of March.

At the age of sixty and in the year Caesar was crowned dictator, Cicero started writing a series of books on history and politics up until that time. Intellectual study for Cicero was every bit as important as politics and war. By this time in his life, especially since the end of the Republic was at hand, Cicero opted for documenting his thoughts on the significance
of a republic that honored the rule of law. He wrote compulsively and once remarked that he wrote more in that short three-year period knowing the republic was doomed than during his lifetime when the republic was in place.

Cicero would have been remembered for what he did actively as a politician and orator in his effort to save the Roman constitution and the republic. But his legacy was sealed for more than 2,000 years by his philosophic dissertations that, once it was clear to him that the Roman Republic was dead, sprang from his effort to reflect on it.

We cannot know exactly what tomorrow will bring, nor in what time the consequences of bad policy will evolve, so we must strive for truth and the preservation of those values that we are convinced have benefited mankind. We could be successful and preserve the American Republic as it was intended, giving up the militarism of the American Empire. The odds are slim that that will occur without a bloody reaction from those who wield the power over the military-industrial complex, our political process, the media, our economy, our monetary system, and our personal lives. But regardless, since the principles of liberty are based on morally correct ideas, anything we do to preserve them will benefit mankind.

Making progress in promoting civilization is a much higher goal than the limited desire to “save the Republic.” Technological advances, the consequences of economic liberty, have far surpassed our ability and concerns for understanding the importance of the moral values required to maintain the process. Concentration on our material well-being and neglect of the moral principles that underpin material abundance will
result in the loss of prosperity, peace, and liberty. Already the signs are ominous: a sharply decreasing standard of living for millions worldwide.

The American Empire is the enemy of American freedom. It is every bit as much the enemy of American citizens as it is of its victims around the world.

Denson, John. 2006.
A Century of War
. Auburn, AL: Mises Institute.

Eland, Ivan. 2004.
The Empire Has No Clothes: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed
. Independent Institute.
http://www.independent.org
.

Mises, Ludwig von. 1945.
Omnipotent Government
. New Haven: Yale University Press.

E
nvy is the painful awareness of another’s good fortune. It is usually associated with the desire to bring an end to that good fortune through some means. Thus is it worse than jealousy, which is wanting what another has. Envy seeks to take away what another has out of spite and hatred, and is driven by the desire to destroy. It is an extremely destructive emotion, one that cannot bring personal happiness and is sure to bring social harm. The exercise of envy only ends in satisfying a kind of lust for bad to come to others. All the world religions condemn the impulse. It is one of the seven deadly sins. It is something we train our children not to feel. No good can come of it.

I raise it in this context because envy is one of the driving forces of redistributionist politics in the United States, an emotion and motivation endorsed every day on the editorial pages. It is the secret motivation behind the unrelenting attacks on the rich heard every day inside Washington, a town whose population includes some of the most well-to-do people in the entire country. The emotion that is behind the
attacks on the justly rich, and the emotion that such attacks seek to stir within the population, is envy.

Envy is sometimes called the green-eyed monster. Many religious traditions have given rise to charms and methods for warding it off. That’s because the envious will stop at nothing in order to achieve their goals of harming those who succeed, even when achieving that goal is itself personally harmful. Policies driven by envy, such as the progressive income tax and the inheritance tax, do not help society. They gather revenue but arguably less than would be gathered if all taxes were low and friendly to overall production. But such policies do accomplish the goal of harming people who are rich and successful.

There are dangerous social consequences to the private exercise of envy. People fear driving a nice car or living in a nice home because these behaviors might elicit reprisal. So it is in public policy. Policies rooted in envy discourage the accumulation of wealth, punish success, and cause people to pull back from doing great things. People who might otherwise pursue wealth think twice, knowing full well that the force of law stands waiting to crush success.

To hate is always injurious to the soul. To hate because another person or class of people has done well for itself compounds the injury. But that is precisely what policies that survive solely to punish people for making money, or for living well, are really all about. It’s been going on for a very long time. It strikes me as a form of institutionalized immorality. Under ideal conditions, our law should elicit from us the best that we have to offer, always appealing to the highest impulses of our nature. Policies that harm people solely because they are winners in life appeal to the lowest impulses in our nature.

It is hard enough for people to come to terms with success, especially in a market setting in which superior traits such as foresight and prudence and good judgment really do lead to profitability. We should learn the virtue of celebrating success or, as the ancient philosophers said, learn to be inspired by the success of others. We should try to emulate success, not punish it. This is the American way and a major reason for the wealth and success of Americans.

It is the same with international politics. We don’t have to be number one and we sure don’t have to regard every country that does well (think China here) as a threat to be kicked and punched. In a true market economy, gain does not come at anyone’s expense. We can all win together, provided we keep the green-eyed monster at bay.

De Jouvenel, Bertrand. 1990.
The Ethics of Redistribution
. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.

Schoeck, Helmut. 1987.
Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior
. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.

N
o one person has perfect knowledge as to man’s emergence on this earth. Yet almost everyone has a strong religious, scientific, or emotional opinion he or she considers gospel. The creationists frown on the evolutionists, and the evolutionists dismiss the creationists as kooky and unscientific. Lost in this struggle are those who look objectively at all the scientific evidence for evolution without feeling any need to reject the notion of an all-powerful, all-knowing Creator. My personal view is that recognizing the validity of an evolutionary process does not support atheism nor should it diminish one’s view about God and the universe.

From my viewpoint, this is a debate about science and religion (and I wish it could be more civil!) and should not involve politicians at all. Why can’t this remain an academic debate and not be made the political issue it has become?

The answer is simple. Both sides want to use the state to enforce their views on others. One side doesn’t mind using force to expose others to prayer and professing their faith. The other side demands that they have the right never to be
offended and demands prohibition of any public expression of faith.

Fortunately, in this country, there’s no effort to establish any official state religion as has been done elsewhere. In many parts of the world today theocracies are still being imposed on many people. It is not a mythical threat, and I understand the impulse to resist. At the same time, the past hundred years have also seen secular dictatorships that banish religion in the name of shoring up allegiance to the state alone. I also understand the very real threat of that terrible reality.

The real problem comes when government gets involved in this issue, whether the goal is to push theocracy or merely prayer in a public place, or the opposite, to crush all traces of faith expression in public places.

One of the silliest questions posed to the Republican presidential candidates in 2008 dealt with evolution. Why should an individual running for the presidency in the United States be quizzed as to whether or not he or she believes in evolution? The question was designed in an attempt for the supporters of evolution to embarrass a candidate who supports creationism, or, if the candidate backs away, to drive a wedge between the candidate and the religious right.

The way the question was asked made it even sillier. It occurred May 3, 2007, in the first presidential debate in Simi Valley, California. The debate was moderated by Chris Matthews and John Harris. One of the moderators called for all the candidates who believed in evolution to raise their hands. At the time, my first impression was that this sounded like a third-grade class exercise. I interpreted raising one’s hand as an all-or-nothing answer and as an insult and didn’t bother
to answer the question; nor was I called upon to discuss my views.