America is special. America is called to lead the world in liberty and freedom. America is not just special in the way that each country is special. No, America is even more than that. America is exceptional. America is special in a way that no other country in the world can assert.
From John Kennedy to Barack Obama, from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush, this belief in American exceptionalism is a central belief of the leaders of both political parties. The belief in American exceptionalism is unchallenged and unopposed in the United States. Disagreement with American exceptionalism is suppressed, mocked, and generally understood to belong only to the political fringes, to be found only on the outside edges of the relevant American political debates.
There is no possible way that I could oppose American exceptionalism. Listen to any politician heap praise upon it: what do you hear? You will hear praise for liberty, praise for freedom and openness, praise for competition and the free market of ideas, praise for pluralism and choice, praise for America's moral leadership, a leadership made possible only by the most free and most democratic society in the world.
American ideas are the best in the world. The American way of life is the best in the world. America is therefore, obviously, the best country in the world. What a disaster, what a tragedy it would be, if the world were not led by its best and strongest nation? The leaders and politicians in America can't stand to imagine that any other nation is superior to America, or that any other nation should lead the world besides America, or that any nation should exercise more influence and power than America.
There is simply no way I could oppose American exceptionalism, as it is depicted by American politicians. If American beliefs are so superior to others, and if America is only acting in the world to defend and spread those beliefs, then it would be foolish for me to oppose America standing up for those beliefs!
All is not what it seems. The theoretical American exceptionalism lavishly praised by politicians is a far different animal than the American exceptionalism actively practiced in reality. The American exceptionalism which now exists is the exceptionalism of economic strength, the exceptionalism of raw power and military might, and the exceptionalism of authority and ideology over law and responsibility. Current American exceptionalism is a creature of fantasy and propaganda.
America is not exceptional because it encourages liberty - it is exceptional because it can deny the liberty of others (imprisoning without trial, torturing, and ordering assassinations of American citizens without due process) and ignore the consequences. America is not exceptional because it encourages openness - it is exceptional because it dismisses and attacks those who disagree with its policy, while criticizing other nations who act in the same ways (mercilessly prosecuting whistleblowers who expose fraud and journalists who expose corruption). America is not exceptional because it encourages competition - America is exceptional because its economic policy is corrupt and narrows the path of prosperity (reducing equality of opportunity by rewarding the rich with tax cuts and slashing social safety nets). America is not exceptional because it encourages democracy - it is exceptional because it has supported dictators (such as Hosni Mubarak) who have suppressed democracy and persecuted those who protest against them.
However, I refuse to abandon American exceptionalism. If America wishes to be a leader in the world, to be a leader of freedom and liberty with a legitimate claim to moral guidance and direction - then Americans must demand that their government adopt and practice a new kind of American exceptionalism. America must not use its force and influence to merely gain power for its own interests, but must instead accomplish the things its politicians so forcefully endorse but do not pursue: greater liberty, greater freedom, greater choice, greater openness, and greater democracy, under the law, with true equality for all people.
America must be exceptional in its compassion, in its empathy, and in its forgiveness. America must be exceptional in its patience, in its purpose, and in its sacrifice. If America is fighting three wars to remain a great nation, let's be entirely sure what kind of greatness is worth the lives of our soldiers and the lives of innocent civilians in the countries where we fight. Isn't it a waste to destroy so many lives if all we are doing will only ensure that America remains a great economic power or a great military power? Isn't it a tragedy that so many lives have ended in the name of naked brute force and the almighty dollar alone?
There is no more exceptional sacrifice for a cause than the relinquishing of a human life. Perhaps Americans should remember that unrelenting fact before demanding further sacrifice of that highest kind for any cause which is less than fully exceptional.
For the good of the world, and for the good of its own people, especially for those sent to fight and die in our conflicts, America must be exceptional in its adherence to law, exceptional in its concern for the well-being of its own people and for the peoples of other nations, and exceptional in its undying commitment to the principles of freedom and liberty which have justified, but do not yet govern, American actions.
Showing posts with label liberty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label liberty. Show all posts
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
What Are Liberal Values?
What Are Liberal Values?
I am currently taking a class called "History of the Modern Conservative Movement". My professor is an ardent conservative. He usually does not engage directly in political arguments during class, but he occasionally challenges liberal ideas in an indirect and subtle way. He'll offer a conservative attack on a liberal idea, and then say "this is what conservatives tend to think, not necessarily what I think - and you're taking this class to hear the conservative view, so here you go".
My professor addressed the following challenge to liberals during the first month of class, and I have been considering how to answer his questions since then:
"A conservative recognizes the same rights that have been traditionally recognized by thinkers such as John Locke: life, liberty, and property. Also, a conservative believes that these rights are not given by the government - but by an external source. I always want to ask liberals this: what is your vision of the country? Where would you stop if you could have your ultimate wishes? Conservatives know what kind of country they want - with the protection of the same traditional rights which have been the heritage of America since the Founding. But liberals keep trying to create new 'rights'. Where will you stop? You can see that there may be a kind of validity to Hayek's argument that once citizens depend on the government for more and more 'rights', the government can become oppressive."
Why do liberals keep trying to invent new rights? This is the wrong question.
What's the right question?
Why aren't conservatives doing more to preserve and secure the rights they cherish?
That's the correct question.
Securing Our Rights
Life. Liberty. Property. That's a celebrated trifecta - a trilogy - a trinity - and it seems simple and convenient enough to understand. If you're an American, you heard about it from Thomas Jefferson, who scribbled something about "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" once upon a time.
Isn't it enough that the government assist individuals in their pursuit of these three things? Why should the government do otherwise? Government is inherently oppressive - the less it does, the better the country.
Point taken - let's start there. Suppose you want to establish a government solely devoted to ensuring the rights of life, liberty, and property. Let's assume that the government should only intervene in cases where the public cannot accomplish a task effectively on its own, and the task relates directly to one of our big three times: life, liberty, or property. For each right, let's assess the capacity of individuals to secure the right on their own, without the intervention of government, and see if it's plausible for a government to take any additional measures to secure those rights.
Life
The right to life is the right to personal security. If society is enmeshed in a condition of anarchy and lawlessness, the right to life may be extremely difficult to secure. Can private citizens secure law and order successfully without the aid of a government? Perhaps - to a limited extent and for a small scale. A voluntary association of citizens could access a certain supply of small arms and protect a smaller area. However, most people lack the resources to defend themselves against more threatening fears, such as a conventional military or terrorist attack.
Another option is to establish a corporation which individuals pay to protect them. However, it would be difficult to distinguish in an emergency who paid dues and who did not. Further, by failing to address a public threat only because someone did not pay for protection, there could be harm to those who did pay. It would be far more practical to establish a police force or a military. I feel that this assertion is non-controversial, and that the majority of conservatives would agree with me on this.
Liberty
Liberty is a difficult concept to understand. It's not a tangible object, like life or property. Alexis de Tocqueville noted this in "Democracy in America", when contrasting public support for liberty and equality: because equality is more tangible and easier to understand, there is a danger that the public will always favor measures which bolster equality at the cost of weakening liberty.
Unfortunately, the problem is even worse than de Tocqueville imagined. The public also is liable to favor measures which bolster security at the cost of weakening liberty. However, this assertion cuts across many political ideologies. I know conservatives and liberals who are wildly opposed across political issues who would make this same argument regarding the dangers of abandoning liberty in the name of security. The funny thing about this phenomenon is that it is completely foreseeable. The culprit here is that there is a wide variety of definitions of liberty.
I told you liberty was a renegade. How many possible human activities can you imagine? That's how many definitions of the word 'liberty' exist today.
Rights as Restraints
This quibble over the meaning of the word 'liberty' leads me to an important point about the understanding of rights: many of the Enlightenment thinkers believed that rights can only be secured when the actions of other people are restrained. My professor for History of the Modern Conservative Movement put it this way: "our Founders believed that with every right comes a certain responsibility".
It's no wonder liberty is preposterously hard to grasp - it's an internally contradictory concept. Every person who uses the word 'liberty' has a hidden assumption of which kinds of behavior citizens should have liberty to choose. Generally, it has been suggested that the proper limit on action should be taken when an action would infringe on another person's life, liberty, or property. Said another way: you can basically have the liberty to do what you want until you take away someone else's liberty.
Let's assume we can decide that the type of liberty we should protect is the kind that does not take away someone else's liberty - that's a simple enough definition. Now let's return to the original premise of our discussion: what should be done to secure liberty (as we have defined it), and who should be in charge of those efforts?
Reconsidering Liberty
To secure liberty as we have defined it (that individuals should have the liberty to do all things which do not remove someone else's rights) - let's try to identify some actions which may or may not violate liberty, and decide on that basis whether they are permissible. To secure liberty, we should want to stop actions which erode it.
Does abortion violate rights? If the fetus is a person, then it has a certain set of rights which should be considered. However, the mother is also a person who has a certain set of rights, too. When does the personhood of the fetus eclipse the right to liberty a woman has over her own body?
Does the death penalty violate rights? If a person has been convicted of murder, that individual has already violated another person's liberty. Should the government violate a person's rights just because he or she did it first-isn't that fighting a wrong with a wrong? Or, should the government remove the liberty of a criminal to protect the liberty of the public?
Does a ban on online gambling violate rights?
Does a ban on marijuana violate rights?
Does a ban on same-sex marriage violate rights?
I hope you are beginning to understand the difficulty of weighing liberty against other rights. It is an extremely serious and delicate matter to consider just how far a government should act to limit the actions of individuals in order to protect the liberty of other citizens. Where is the balance between the greatest freedom of action and the strongest possible security of the rights of others?
I have heard conservatives argue this one way and I have heard liberals argue this another way, but both sides should agree that the question is a matter of balance and difficult to discern.
A Return to Our Premise
I mentioned earlier that there are two questions hanging over this exploration of rights:
1. Why do liberals keep trying to invent new rights?
2. Why aren't conservatives doing more to preserve and secure the rights they cherish?
It may appear that liberals accept a broader number of rights besides the major three enumerated traditionally: life, liberty, and property. However, I reject this view. I believe that liberals have a different perception of what is necessary to preserve and secure life, liberty, and property.
A liberal assumes that each right is dependent on a host of others. A liberal has a more extensive idea of what each of the three traditional natural rights entails.
If a bank forecloses on my home because they offered fraudulent mortgage terms, my right to property is violated.
If a corporation imported goods from China which contained poisonous lead, and I fall ill from ingesting it, my right to life is violated.
If the institution of public education is dismantled, and my ability to participate in civic processes in an engaged manner is therefore lacking, my right to liberty is violated.
A 'right to health care' is a right to life. A 'right to education' is a right to liberty. A 'right to consumer protection' is a right to life and a right to property, depending on the case. This is obvious, intuitive, and self-evident to liberals.
Does it make sense that these things are natural extensions of the rights to life, liberty, and property? Can a coherent notion of the rights to life, liberty, and property exist without guaranteeing those conditions which allow them to flourish?
A liberal doesn't want new rights: a liberal wants to secure the rights we have, and is dismayed when conservatives refuse to act to protect those rights for all Americans.
I am currently taking a class called "History of the Modern Conservative Movement". My professor is an ardent conservative. He usually does not engage directly in political arguments during class, but he occasionally challenges liberal ideas in an indirect and subtle way. He'll offer a conservative attack on a liberal idea, and then say "this is what conservatives tend to think, not necessarily what I think - and you're taking this class to hear the conservative view, so here you go".
My professor addressed the following challenge to liberals during the first month of class, and I have been considering how to answer his questions since then:
"A conservative recognizes the same rights that have been traditionally recognized by thinkers such as John Locke: life, liberty, and property. Also, a conservative believes that these rights are not given by the government - but by an external source. I always want to ask liberals this: what is your vision of the country? Where would you stop if you could have your ultimate wishes? Conservatives know what kind of country they want - with the protection of the same traditional rights which have been the heritage of America since the Founding. But liberals keep trying to create new 'rights'. Where will you stop? You can see that there may be a kind of validity to Hayek's argument that once citizens depend on the government for more and more 'rights', the government can become oppressive."
Why do liberals keep trying to invent new rights? This is the wrong question.
What's the right question?
Why aren't conservatives doing more to preserve and secure the rights they cherish?
That's the correct question.
Securing Our Rights
Life. Liberty. Property. That's a celebrated trifecta - a trilogy - a trinity - and it seems simple and convenient enough to understand. If you're an American, you heard about it from Thomas Jefferson, who scribbled something about "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" once upon a time.
Isn't it enough that the government assist individuals in their pursuit of these three things? Why should the government do otherwise? Government is inherently oppressive - the less it does, the better the country.
Point taken - let's start there. Suppose you want to establish a government solely devoted to ensuring the rights of life, liberty, and property. Let's assume that the government should only intervene in cases where the public cannot accomplish a task effectively on its own, and the task relates directly to one of our big three times: life, liberty, or property. For each right, let's assess the capacity of individuals to secure the right on their own, without the intervention of government, and see if it's plausible for a government to take any additional measures to secure those rights.
Life
The right to life is the right to personal security. If society is enmeshed in a condition of anarchy and lawlessness, the right to life may be extremely difficult to secure. Can private citizens secure law and order successfully without the aid of a government? Perhaps - to a limited extent and for a small scale. A voluntary association of citizens could access a certain supply of small arms and protect a smaller area. However, most people lack the resources to defend themselves against more threatening fears, such as a conventional military or terrorist attack.
Another option is to establish a corporation which individuals pay to protect them. However, it would be difficult to distinguish in an emergency who paid dues and who did not. Further, by failing to address a public threat only because someone did not pay for protection, there could be harm to those who did pay. It would be far more practical to establish a police force or a military. I feel that this assertion is non-controversial, and that the majority of conservatives would agree with me on this.
Liberty
Liberty is a difficult concept to understand. It's not a tangible object, like life or property. Alexis de Tocqueville noted this in "Democracy in America", when contrasting public support for liberty and equality: because equality is more tangible and easier to understand, there is a danger that the public will always favor measures which bolster equality at the cost of weakening liberty.
Unfortunately, the problem is even worse than de Tocqueville imagined. The public also is liable to favor measures which bolster security at the cost of weakening liberty. However, this assertion cuts across many political ideologies. I know conservatives and liberals who are wildly opposed across political issues who would make this same argument regarding the dangers of abandoning liberty in the name of security. The funny thing about this phenomenon is that it is completely foreseeable. The culprit here is that there is a wide variety of definitions of liberty.
I told you liberty was a renegade. How many possible human activities can you imagine? That's how many definitions of the word 'liberty' exist today.
Rights as Restraints
This quibble over the meaning of the word 'liberty' leads me to an important point about the understanding of rights: many of the Enlightenment thinkers believed that rights can only be secured when the actions of other people are restrained. My professor for History of the Modern Conservative Movement put it this way: "our Founders believed that with every right comes a certain responsibility".
It's no wonder liberty is preposterously hard to grasp - it's an internally contradictory concept. Every person who uses the word 'liberty' has a hidden assumption of which kinds of behavior citizens should have liberty to choose. Generally, it has been suggested that the proper limit on action should be taken when an action would infringe on another person's life, liberty, or property. Said another way: you can basically have the liberty to do what you want until you take away someone else's liberty.
Let's assume we can decide that the type of liberty we should protect is the kind that does not take away someone else's liberty - that's a simple enough definition. Now let's return to the original premise of our discussion: what should be done to secure liberty (as we have defined it), and who should be in charge of those efforts?
Reconsidering Liberty
To secure liberty as we have defined it (that individuals should have the liberty to do all things which do not remove someone else's rights) - let's try to identify some actions which may or may not violate liberty, and decide on that basis whether they are permissible. To secure liberty, we should want to stop actions which erode it.
Does abortion violate rights? If the fetus is a person, then it has a certain set of rights which should be considered. However, the mother is also a person who has a certain set of rights, too. When does the personhood of the fetus eclipse the right to liberty a woman has over her own body?
Does the death penalty violate rights? If a person has been convicted of murder, that individual has already violated another person's liberty. Should the government violate a person's rights just because he or she did it first-isn't that fighting a wrong with a wrong? Or, should the government remove the liberty of a criminal to protect the liberty of the public?
Does a ban on online gambling violate rights?
Does a ban on marijuana violate rights?
Does a ban on same-sex marriage violate rights?
I hope you are beginning to understand the difficulty of weighing liberty against other rights. It is an extremely serious and delicate matter to consider just how far a government should act to limit the actions of individuals in order to protect the liberty of other citizens. Where is the balance between the greatest freedom of action and the strongest possible security of the rights of others?
I have heard conservatives argue this one way and I have heard liberals argue this another way, but both sides should agree that the question is a matter of balance and difficult to discern.
A Return to Our Premise
I mentioned earlier that there are two questions hanging over this exploration of rights:
1. Why do liberals keep trying to invent new rights?
2. Why aren't conservatives doing more to preserve and secure the rights they cherish?
It may appear that liberals accept a broader number of rights besides the major three enumerated traditionally: life, liberty, and property. However, I reject this view. I believe that liberals have a different perception of what is necessary to preserve and secure life, liberty, and property.
A liberal assumes that each right is dependent on a host of others. A liberal has a more extensive idea of what each of the three traditional natural rights entails.
If a bank forecloses on my home because they offered fraudulent mortgage terms, my right to property is violated.
If a corporation imported goods from China which contained poisonous lead, and I fall ill from ingesting it, my right to life is violated.
If the institution of public education is dismantled, and my ability to participate in civic processes in an engaged manner is therefore lacking, my right to liberty is violated.
A 'right to health care' is a right to life. A 'right to education' is a right to liberty. A 'right to consumer protection' is a right to life and a right to property, depending on the case. This is obvious, intuitive, and self-evident to liberals.
Does it make sense that these things are natural extensions of the rights to life, liberty, and property? Can a coherent notion of the rights to life, liberty, and property exist without guaranteeing those conditions which allow them to flourish?
A liberal doesn't want new rights: a liberal wants to secure the rights we have, and is dismayed when conservatives refuse to act to protect those rights for all Americans.
Monday, June 29, 2009
The Politics of Attitude
You don't like it - you frown on it. Whenever it is mentioned, you have a visceral distaste. Many would say that you're unnecessarily critical of something that almost everyone finds useful, and that many people find essential. In fact, if it didn't exist, a lot of us wouldn't be here.
What am I talking about?
Sex?
Guns?
The answer is: both.
It seems that a lot of people have a very strong opposition to the idea of guns, or to the idea of sex, and tend to overlook situations where each could play a positive influence. There are a lot of people who take extreme positions against guns and against sex in both parties. It's time that we had a realistic, responsible, mature attitude about these things: as a country, we should realize that there are proper and safe ways to use and enjoy both items I have mentioned.
However, some folks are just doggedly determined to oppose both wherever they appear.
We don't need to abhor sex, or guns: we don't need to control them, we need to promote safe behaviors and encourage learning so that when people use these things, they'll know what they're doing.
For those who are reticent to approve of sex education: would you leave a loaded gun lying around your house, especially if you had children who knew nothing about firearms?
Of course not - that would be negligent.
Some people don't like guns - some people don't like sex very much, either. Fine. That's your personal preference, and you have the right as an American to have that preference. But don't impose your morality on me just because you are disgusted by other citizens' affinity for either quantity.
Our guiding principle should be that as long as the public safety and welfare is not infringed, individual liberty should be protected. That should be something to which everyone can consent.
What am I talking about?
Sex?
Guns?
The answer is: both.
It seems that a lot of people have a very strong opposition to the idea of guns, or to the idea of sex, and tend to overlook situations where each could play a positive influence. There are a lot of people who take extreme positions against guns and against sex in both parties. It's time that we had a realistic, responsible, mature attitude about these things: as a country, we should realize that there are proper and safe ways to use and enjoy both items I have mentioned.
However, some folks are just doggedly determined to oppose both wherever they appear.
We don't need to abhor sex, or guns: we don't need to control them, we need to promote safe behaviors and encourage learning so that when people use these things, they'll know what they're doing.
For those who are reticent to approve of sex education: would you leave a loaded gun lying around your house, especially if you had children who knew nothing about firearms?
Of course not - that would be negligent.
Some people don't like guns - some people don't like sex very much, either. Fine. That's your personal preference, and you have the right as an American to have that preference. But don't impose your morality on me just because you are disgusted by other citizens' affinity for either quantity.
Our guiding principle should be that as long as the public safety and welfare is not infringed, individual liberty should be protected. That should be something to which everyone can consent.
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