Liberty Defined: 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom

by Ron Paul

  It’s crucial to grasp that a flawed misunderstanding of what the Golden Rule means can be used to justify violent redistribution of wealth and wars of aggression and must not go unchallenged. It’s bad enough that history has been filled with thousands who find themselves in positions of power and don’t even pretend to endorse this basic Golden Rule principle.

  There are too many—and I have met quite a few of them from across the political spectrum—whose working premise is that the masses don’t deserve the right to their life or property and must be cared for by their benevolent masters. This rationalization is used so the authoritarians can enjoy exerting power over others just for the sake of power.

  Because we no longer have a moral compass to guide our political system, we now face the prospect of economic and social upheaval. Without a moral foundation to our political system it’s a free-for-all, and those who understand how to use government power benefit the most. Government is driven by envy and avarice, not the self-interest that drives free markets and is condemned as selfish by the enemies of liberty.

  A system of government without limit, if unchecked, will destroy production and impoverish the nation. The only answer is to better understand economics and monetary systems, as well as social and foreign policies, with the hope that they will change once it becomes clear that government policies are a threat to all of us.

  SECURITY

  Many Americans believe that it is necessary to sacrifice some freedom for security in order to preserve freedom in the greater sense. Others believe that if some freedom is sacrificed for security, neither can be achieved. This question has been around for a long time: Must we sacrifice some freedom to provide the security needed to enjoy our freedom? We have heard a positive answer to this question by too many Americans, especially since 9/11.

  More than 200 years ago, Ben Franklin warned us about it. His often-quoted warning seems to have been totally ignored in modern America. Succinctly put, Franklin warned: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” And, I might add, they will get neither. The tragedy is that the would-be tyrants, in collaboration with the victims of government fear-mongering, who demand ultimate safety destroy the liberties of those who are convinced that there is no need ever to sacrifice any liberty in the belief that the government will protect us from all harm.

  George W. Bush was totally confused on this issue. Deliberate or not, I don’t know, but he claimed his prime responsibility was to keep all Americans safe, not obeying the Constitution. This was a bad set of priorities. His legal adviser John Yoo gave Bush strong support for this belief and argued that the President could ignore laws and the Constitution when they interfered with his goal of striving for safety. The presidential oath of office specifically says the President’s obligation is to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.”

  As we’ve seen throughout history, fear drives the growth of government. If there’s no natural or inadvertent crisis, one is easily created or imagined by those who agitate for the authoritarian state. Fear will ignite a demand to be taken care of. In a free society, where depending on government is minimal or absent, any real crisis serves to motivate individuals, families, churches, and communities to come together and work to offset the crisis, whether it comes from natural causes such as floods, droughts, fire, illness, or predators or is man-made. Once dependency on government for both rich and poor is ingrained in society, any perceived, actual, or created crisis will prompt a demand for a rescue at any cost.

  And usually the costs are to be borne by others—so it is hoped. Any benefits are short-lived. They are never fairly distributed, and all benefits are achieved through theft. The assumption that government can rescue us from all problems, and it’s not the individual’s responsibility to plan for unforeseen circumstances, causes behavior changes that magnify all crises through a constant erosion of liberty.

  We might reflect on how we achieve security in our everyday lives. We have locks on our doors, provided by private manufacturers. We use privately provided alarm systems. We depend on the idea that others are going to drive safely, and the incentive to do so comes from a private system of insurance. Some people own and carry guns for security. Their efforts help everyone by deterring criminality. Commercial establishments such as banks and jewelry stores hire private security guards. Malls and subdivisions have their own security apparatus.

  If we reflect on how security works in the real world, we discover a huge and important role for private enterprise, and we find that the vast government apparatus of “national security” does not keep us safe so much as threaten our liberties by regarding the entire citizenry as a threat. Private security does not threaten our civil liberties, but government-provided security does.

  And yet to oppose attacks on our civil liberties for the good of the state is considered unpatriotic and un-American. The advice we get from the authoritarians is, “Don’t ever let a crisis go to waste” (as Rahm Emanuel put it). It was a mere thirty-four days after the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers that the Patriot Act was passed by Congress. It was more than 300 pages in length and was available to us on the House floor only one hour before the short debate started. Much of what was included in the bill actually had been proposed off and on for years before the attack. The impact and fear generated by the attacks on the Towers offered the opportunity that many of the neoconservatives were anxiously waiting for.

  The Patriot Act represented a radical departure from the protections of the Fourth Amendment. It authorized self-written search warrants (FBI and other agents) and national security letters and essentially undermined the privacy of all Americans protected by our Constitution. No records are now safe from the government. All Americans are potential terrorists and subject to unrestrained searches by our government “protectors.”

  The Patriot Act passed easily in both Houses. The fact that an extremely unpatriotic piece of legislation was called the Patriot Act tells you about the arrogance and cynicism that exists in Washington, DC. Congress and the people went along due to the heightened fear and the public pressure to do something. A steady stream of similar legislation over the past decade has decimated the liberties of the American people. Most are still unaware of the significance of the loss of constitutional restraints on our government officials.

  This is no small issue. Our liberties have been seriously eroded. Before 9/11 we were spending approximately $40 billion annually on intelligence gathering. A strong argument could be made that this spending was a total waste, having failed to warn us of the impending disaster even with evidence we now know was available. Today, agencies dedicated to gathering intelligence spend $80 billion per year. Who in America can say they feel safer because of this secret spending and interference in other countries? The truth is we’re less safe because of it and certainly poorer. But in addition, we cannot assume the spying is only on our enemies.

  The surveillance now includes e-mail, telephone, mail, and all activities of American citizens. There is no privacy left. This all results from the false assumption that sacrificing a little freedom for safety is acceptable.

  Most Americans continue to believe that the government is spending about the right amount on the military, which many people equate with security. But how many people know how ridiculously high U.S. military spending is compared with that of other countries? In 2009, world military expenditures were $1.531 trillion, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Yearbook of 2010. Fully 46.5 percent of that was spent by the United States! The next highest expense was by China, which comprised only 6.6 percent of the total. After that came France with 4.2 percent, the United Kingdom with 3.8 percent, and Russia with 3.5 percent. And how much of the rest of the world’s spending is due to nations protecting themselves against the United States as the perceived threat?

  Now, most Americans can’t even conceive of other countries believing the United St
ates to be a threat. And yet, ours is the only government that will travel to far distant lands to overthrow governments, station troops, and drop bombs on people. The United States is the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons against people. And we are surprised that many people in the world regard the United States as a threat?

  Though many had hopes that the Obama administration would change direction and soften the aggression and abuse of the Patriot Act, it has supported its extension. This includes access to library and bookstore records, a broader definition of the “lone wolf” provisions, and roving wiretaps. There was no resistance by the Republican Party or the Democratic leadership in the Congress.

  President Obama continues the attitude of generally using executive orders to write law. Signing statements to qualify any legislation he signs is still used. Protecting the principle of “state secrets” without concern for citizens’ privacy is being continued by the current administration. There will be no repeal of the Military Commissions Act, and secret renditions continue, no changes in the Patriot Act, and no increase in transparency of the federal government. We’re still locked into sacrificing liberty for illusory promises of security. The National Security Agency continues to get more power while the government gets more secrecy and the people’s privacy is destroyed.

  Although the abuses are always directed toward “terrorists” or enemy combatants, it’s a precedent that could easily open the door for denying due process to any American citizen. Already American citizens have been victims of the new system that denies ordinary rights guaranteed in the Constitution.

  Because we are not in a declared war, military justice is not supposed to be used. That is what the Constitution says. Suspects now held in our many secret prisons are neither protected by the Geneva Convention nor the Constitution, and yet suspects can be held indefinitely without charges being made or individuals given the right of habeas corpus. This process has been endorsed by both the Bush and Obama administrations. The current rules for arresting individuals in countries that we have invaded and occupied have been established by executive order at the expense of the Constitution.

  Indefinite detention without charges or access to counsel, no matter what the authorities think the prisoners did, is a grave danger to all of us. If the executive order that permitted such detention is allowed to stand, it won’t take too many years or too many emergencies to totally destroy freedom as we have known it. Conditions are ripe for some form of dictatorship to emerge. Dependency on government to care for us in all ways has caused the majority of the people and their congressional representatives to act in a way that guarantees our problems will get worse.

  We are witnessing the destruction of the liberties that took centuries to establish in order to rein in the kings of old.

  SLAVERY

  John Quincy Adams was not an abolitionist, but he wanted the slavery issue debated. After serving four years as President, he was elected to the U.S. Congress, where he served for seventeen years. Hardly would any ex-President consider that today. During his congressional career, he tried to bring the slave issue discussion to the House floor. However, the gag laws forbade it. But after a long struggle, in 1844 he successfully got rid of those laws and the matter could be discussed.

  This is sometimes the fate of crucial issues such as slavery. Discussion of them is banned. Those who spoke out strongly against slavery were frowned upon and suffered for it socially and politically. But they persisted in any case. Though there were some who resorted to violence to force release of slaves, many others helped protect runaway slaves to keep them from being forced to return to their owners as mandated by federal fugitive slave laws.

  Still, the fundamental issue did not go away. You can silence debate but you can’t sweep fundamental moral issues such as slavery under the carpet. And what is slavery? It is the presumption that one human being can literally own and control another human being, such that the slave can be worked, bought, and sold without the free exercise of individual volition. Extrapolating that idea in the macro sense, isn’t that also the case with a whole society ruled by a vast leviathan state? We got rid of the individual form of slavery and replaced it with a growing problem of another kind of slavery. Think of the draft, confiscatory taxation, laws and mandates against home schooling, speech controls, or any number of impositions of life and property, and regulations designed to control our social and business associations. There is a sense in which these can all be considered forms of slavery.

  The issue of government ownership and control of society is also a moral issue. And no matter how much the elites try to shut down debate, the issue is not going away.

  William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips stand out as champion opponents of no compromise on slavery, part of the more radical abolitionist movement. Their efforts were heroic examples of perseverance as they pursued their convictions for decades.

  Wendell Phillips became known as the voice of the abolitionist movement while Garrison was known as the backbone. Phillips’s efforts consumed him for twenty-five years. He eventually achieved his victory, but tragically it was accomplished only with a ghastly and probably needless Civil War that took greater than six hundred thousand American lives. It was tragic that the abolishment of slavery was not achieved as it had been in all other Western nations, peacefully. More attention should have been paid to John Quincy Adams’s tenacity to do it with a change in the Constitution.

  Generally speaking, the abolitionists were supporters of secession. They wanted to separate themselves in the northeast from the slave owners of the South and let them deal with the issue. As Garrison said:

  By the dissolution of the Union we shall give the finishing blow to the slave system; and then God will make it possible for us to form a true, vital, enduring, all-embracing Union, from the Atlantic to the Pacific—one God to be worshipped, one Savior to be revered, one policy to be carried out—freedom everywhere to all the people, without regard to complexion or race—and the blessing of God resting upon us all! I want to see that glorious day!

  In this effort, the question was never raised that the states didn’t have a right to secede. Many people who favored secession also believed, and rightly, that the modern industrial state would eventually work to eliminate slavery.

  Phillips paid a high price for his long effort to rid the country of the scourge of slavery. Throughout all of early America he was scorned and ridiculed. He never wavered in his convictions and saw himself as an agitator and reformer whose goal was to force the American people to face the issue of slavery as a moral imperative.

  Though others supported this cause, Wendell Phillips demonstrated how one individual with determination and truth on his side can influence an entire nation. His unyielding efforts based on strong beliefs in pursuing justice are an example of character rarely found in today’s society.

  Wendell Phillips, though not frequently recognized as an important figure in our history, should inspire anyone who seeks the plain truth about a proper political system. Garrison is much better known for his antislave efforts than is Wendell Phillips, and he served a great role, but Phillips delivered the message and inspired the masses.

  Most importantly, Wendell Phillips knew the importance of the agitator. The agitator proselytizes; he does not write the laws. The purpose of the agitator is to change people’s opinion so that great and significant social change can be achieved. Elimination of slavery from this continent, after more than 200 years, was a goal he clearly understood and sought.

  The role of the strategic planner for change in the social order is completely different from the chicanery of the politician forced to accommodate both sides, speak in double-talk, and move ever so slowly in one direction or another. The politician tinkers around the edges while the revolutionaries—either good or evil—work to change the fundamentals of the political structure once the agitators have prepared the way.

  Those who agitate for change deal with precise ideas,
not fuzzy compromise. This appeals to common sense, personal conscience, and fairness. This approach is ignored when conditions seem to be stable, but when a crisis hits, the views of those who argued for change are suddenly listened to. Quiescent years can go by, requiring great patience and determination and education.

  Phillips, interestingly enough, in talking about this subject, used as an example reformer and agitator Richard Cobden, who sought free trade as a tool of peace and worked a long time for the repeal of the corn laws and the promotion of free trade. Success came when Prime Minister Robert Peel succeeded in passing the laws necessary to do exactly this.

  Ludwig von Mises qualifies for similar praise. He never yielded to the establishment that scorned him and punished him for his views. Yet today, he is a hero to millions for his willingness to stand firm on his principled defense of the free market and explain how it benefits the masses.

  We now live in an age where the current system is being challenged for philosophic and practical reasons. Its failure is becoming more evident every day. There have been plenty of agitators and reformers for decades expecting and warning of lowering living standards brought on by regimentation of the social and economic order. They have offered the practical alternative of freedom. Fortunately, their voices are growing louder and there’s reason to be hopeful that our times will prompt a sea change in Americans’ understanding of what the role of government ought to be.

  I certainly agree that every so often, after long periods of apathy, when the people, driven by the architects of fear, have plunged into dependency, agitators have their day. That which had been ignored and scorned bursts forward with sudden credibility and offers an alternative to the failed ideas that bred and nourished tyrannical government.