Posts Tagged ‘Individualism’

Too often, way too often, people confuse democracy with individual liberty.  They are not the same.  In more normal times, to compare them would be like comparing apples to oranges.  But recently, it’s even worst.  They are directly opposed to one another.  Just look at the gay marriage issue and yesterday’s decision to void California Prop 8.  Thankfully, a federal judge ruled that a democratically approved rule that favors some individuals over others and invades one’s right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness was unconstitutional.  Finally!  Tons of praise for that activist judge that actively represented individual liberty (and the Constitution)!

“‘Democratic’ in its original meaning [refers to] unlimited majority rule . . . a social system in which one’s work, one’s property, one’s mind, and one’s life are at the mercy of any gang that may muster the vote of a majority at any moment for any purpose.” – Ayn Rand

Democracy is a method of governing, but nothing in it’s structure protects individual rights.  Democracy does not wait for all to agree, it looks for some sort of majority.  So, by definition, someone will always be in the minority.  And that minority could, and typically does, have their rights diminished, removed, or just squandered.

Individual liberty is quite different.  It is a moral belief, independent of any political mechanism.  Heck, with the ‘right’ person as dictator, individual liberty could potentially be maximized.  The problem is that is incredibly unlikely and, even if it were to occur, it would not be stable or self-sustaining.  Our founding fathers, far from perfect, gave this a lot of thought and decided that a representative democracy, a republic, would be best.  They hoped that having the general population elect representatives (that would, first and foremost, protect the Constitution and it’s emphasis on protecting and enhancing individual liberty) would be the best form of government.

So why are democracies not equivalent to individual liberties?  Madison writes in #10 of the Federalist Papers on the risks associated with democracies:

“A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party. Hence it is, that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”

We have forgotten that warning and appear to be moving towards a full on embrace of democracy (see the movement towards a popular presidential vote as one example) and the populist mentality that comes with it.  We have stopped talking about defending personal property and liberty and gone right to discussing how best to take from some for the betterment of others.  From Madison to Hayek, we have been warned repeatedly that this is a path to totalitarianism.

It is this poor sense of direction that gave me hope for the Tea Party movement.  At first, it was a large and informal group of individuals that were demanding that our representatives get back on the right path.  The path to individual liberty and low government involvement in individuals’ personal lives.  Yes, at the beginning, it was focused on taxes and our wallets, but it represented much more.  To me, it represented a desire to reassert our moral belief that all are created equal and deserve a society that respects and protects their rights.

However, I fear that it is being hijacked by some small (or not so small, who knows) faction that has changed the dialogue from protecting individual liberty to fighting for democracy.  In the Twittersphere, many a Tea Partying endorser is complaining about the elitist judge going against the 7 million that voted for Prop 8.  By doing so, they are showing their support for mob rule (be it through a populist vote or otherwise) and pushing to the side THE unalienable right to “one’s work, one’s property, one’s mind, and one’s life”.

Yesterday, the Massachusetts Senate approved an act that takes away the MA citizens’ right to select our nation’s president.  I find that very troubling.  From my understanding, our nation was set up as a republic that gave more power to the states versus the federal government.  The reason for this was to ensure as much individual freedom as possible by making government as large as desired locally, and the smallest to still be functional, nationally.

That is changing now.  And not for the better, in my opinion.  Massachusetts will become the sixth (as stated in the article below) state to give up the right for their citizens to vote for president.  They have decided that no matter how your state votes, they will vote for the presidential candidate that the nation chooses.  That’s called diluting one’s vote.  It’s also called populism.

If the desire, as stated by those that vote for this type of legislation, is that it will be more fair and get people to think their vote matters more.  They are wrong and illogical.  Though the intent is nice, the path leads in the opposite direction.  I, for one, will feel disenfranchised by this.  I live in a state where the vast majority voted for Kerry in 2004, yet it’s electoral votes would have been given to George Bush.  How is that empowering for the voters of this state?  (Clue:  It’s not).

If the intent was to ensure more weight for the individual, why not allow proportional voting where the states electoral votes mimic the outcome fo the state’s popular vote rather than the all-or-nothing method currently employed by the majority of states?  In that way, you leverage your local community rather than being diluted by those in distant parts of the nation.

To win future elections, candidates will spend all the time in the most densely populated areas as that will be where the return on investment will be greatest.  Is that fair?  Our candidates platform will be  built on the needs/desires of a select few that reside within the major cities, never finding it valuable to go to Iowa, Indiana, Louisiana,  the Dakotas, Montana, or Colorado.  They, as recognized states within this republic, will go unheard.

A friend just sent me this piece.  It’s one thing to talk about personal freedom and the need for individual responsibility from someone that was, in the eyes of many of my socialist-leaning friends, lucky or in the right spot at the right time.  It’s another to hear it from someone that lived within the government assistance programs.

I would highly recommend everyone watch this.  It’s 18 minutes that you may or may not have available but I think her message is important to the discussion on free markets versus central planning.

In the talk, she describes the idea that everyone has a genius inside of them rather than the current belief that few individuals are genius.  If you concur, then I think you would tend to the idea that control should be pushed as close to the individual, and that the freedom to act (within bounds) by the individual is the best way for us to solve the problems we face as a society.  Too many times I have people say that ‘if we had the right people in government’ or ‘if we could get 20 smart guys in a room’ we would be able to solve the toughest, most complex problems.

If you believe in the ideas she describes, you would not come to the conclusion that the toughest, most complex problems can be solved by the ideas of the few (no matter what our past and current administrations say).  You would need to recognize that the complexity of the problem demands the little bit of genius that resides in all of us.  And the best way to nurture that genius is not going to come from stifling it as big governments tend to do.

This is a wonderful video on the need to change the educational process.

I read the weekend Wall Street Journal interview of Mrs. Clinton with great interest.  I have written before that I was confused by the current administration’s direction with foreign policy, especially with regards to Latin America, and I was hoping that this article would help me understand their rationale.  Unfortunately, it didn’t speak to Latin America at all (shame on you, WSJ, for not hitting this after all the good articles you have written on this topic).  And, unfortunately (again), she was quoted in ways that make me very nervous.

Before I mention why these quotes made me cringe, I will let you read them below.

“First I think it is important to stress that human rights remain a central driving force of our foreign policy,” she says. “But I also think that it’s important to look at human rights more broadly than it has been defined. Human rights are also the right to a good job and shelter over your head and a chance to send your kids to school and get health care when your wife is pregnant. It’s a much broader agenda. Too often it has gotten narrowed to our detriment.”

and

“I always start from the conviction that countries act from their own self-interest as they define them. Part of diplomacy is to open different definitions of self-interest,” she says.

Ok, now that you read them, let’s take the first one.  Does anyone else find her statements to be contradictory?  If human rights are central to their mission, how can they place some of them (and I will argue that the dominant right is freedom of thought and action) below others?  To state that our administration places good jobs, shelter, education, and healthcare above freedom is very tough for me to swallow.  How is it different than if the North decided to settle with the South when it came to slavery by stating that the South was going to focus more efforts on providing their slaves with a nice shelter (basement or horse stall), a good job (picking produce), schooling (how best to pick the most produce in the 16 hour workday), and healthcare for your pregnant wife (so that the slave owner will have another work-hand in a few years time)?

Implicit in her statement is a failing of respect for the fundamental right to be free.  Something I have mentioned many, many times is the sickness of the current administration to focus on ends rather than means.  She will succeed at getting an agreement from Syria, Iran, North Korea, China, or Russia that states that they will lower their carbon emissions, add more aid to build schools, or whatever so that she can then claim victory in advancing human rights.  But she will be fooling herself and others.  She has accomplished nothing other than legitimizing dictators since they can at any time withdrawal the “gifts” they have given to their subjects.

Moving on to the second quote, she shows her hand by suggesting that countries act from their own self-interests.  It’s not countries, its the current despots, dictators, monarchs that act from their own self-interests.  As long as our government recognizes them and diverts the discussion away from advancing individual freedoms, these rulers strengthen their position in their country and increase their control over their people.

This interview just added to the concern that I have that our current administration either doesn’t understand the fundamental right to be free or, worse, doesn’t agree with it.

The I in CIRCLE stands for Individual and signifies that all rights reside at the individual.  This may seem so obvious that it doesn’t need to be stated but recent events make me think otherwise.  It should be obvious yet almost all discussion occurring now on what is the right thing to do neglects the rights of individuals.  Our world has become so infatuated with grouping individuals in order to simplify the problem that we run the risk of placing rights at the group level.  And by doing so, we take them away from the individual.

First, why is this distinction important?  Well, I’m very glad you asked.  From my viewpoint, individuals are dynamic and groups are static.  Individuals’ priorities change through life and change once certain desires are fulfilled.  They go from being employed to unemployed.  Renters to homeowners.  Single to married.  And, in many cases married to single.  Unemployed to employed.  Homeowners to renters.  We are beings that have the ability to adapt to the situation we are placed into and we typically find ourselves in various situations through our life.  Groups, on the other hand, do not change.  Pro-lifers are, by definition, not going to become pro-choicers.  The middle class, as a group, will never become the affluent group.  Christians will never, as a group, become agnostic.  When we attempt to depict a problem at the group level, we fall into the trap of looking for a static solution, forgetting that we are a mobile and evolving society. 

Secondly, it tends to complicate and divert the process away from the real issue.  Think of “Joe the Plumber.”  As much time was spent talking about his lack of a plumber’s license as was spent on his concern, as an individual, of individual liberty.  Our nation wanted to encapsulate him into a known category so that sides could be drawn and judgements passed rather than identifying him as an individual looking for assurances that his individual liberties were sacred to a particular candidate.  Let’s look at the discussion on gay marriage.  For sides to be taken, we have had to lump people into two groups; pro-gay rights and pro-whatever they call it.  Looking at the issue from a different perspective where you couldn’t label the group (therefore unable of providing it rights above those of an individual) the question would logically come down to “is there anything wrong with letting two consenting adults share their lives as one?”  All the current arguments (‘gays may try to turn me into one of them’ or ‘it starts us down a slippery slope where  someone tries to marry a goat’) fall to the side as it is now all about arbitrarily restricting the rights of some individuals.  When we ask the question as stated above, the first question that should come back is “does allowing their action impede the rights of others to pursue their goals and desires”  If the answer is no, then the discussion ends.  Life goes on.  Emotion is taken out of the equation.  Logic and rational thought prevail.

There are many other examples, too numerous to offer up here.  But please think about this:  The next time you get in a debate, see if the person wants to apply rights to a group of people and, therefore, reduce the rights of the individual.  They may say that it is for the common good, but applying arbitrary and static restrictions on some so that more benefits can flow to others is never good.  It elevates some above others (which leads to fascism) and removes an individual’s identity, making the elimination of their rights easier to justify.

There is a nice opinion article in the Wall Street Journal concerning a potential solution to the ever growing federal government. Here is the link.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?  Unless you are a philosophy major sitting in a Starbucks drinking a double humped something-or-other, your first answer most likely will be Who cares?  At least that’s mine.  Of course, implicit in my answer is the assumption that the tree was not right next to a person’s house and said tree falls on top of the house.  What I’m getting at is two part; first, the question as asked tends to side track the importance of the event, and second, even if the event was not witnessed by you doesn’t mean it doesn’t carry lasting implications for you.

I bring this up as an analogy for what appears to be occurring in Afghanistan (and other parts of the world) with respect to women’s individual rights.  When we (the US and partners) went into Afghanistan, our government needed to justify it as a way to bring to justice the man behind 9/11 and the government that supported him.  For Iraq, our government used the threat of WMD’s and continued infringement of UN resolutions.  After many years in both and using those reasons for our efforts, many see our actions as failures.  Our government sits in a state of mental paralysis analyzing the information that led to the fears of WMD’s and where bin Laden could be hiding.

To me, all of that misses the greater point.  In the aftermath of 9/11, we finally had enough.  We were fed up with groups that had taken control of people and repeatedly shown no respect for human life and personal advancement.  When I look back at that time, I think we had to use these other excuses because it had become wrong to think a culture could be evil.  Wait, you say.  How dare you, JBH,  impose your definition of evil onto a whole mass of people and their beliefs.  We, the enlightened, are not to judge if a culture outside of our own is right or wrong.  Well, that is where I disagree with “enlightened ones.”  Any group that institutes a culture that condemns rape victims to death, that marries off young girls to old pervs, that allows anyone to look down on and enslave someone based on sex IS wrong.  Actually, that culture just SUCKS.  And IF the religion behind that culture encourages those actions, it sucks too. 

For some reason it is okay for us to protest the Japanese for whaling but we can’t condemn those in the Middle East for beating the crap out of women.  It’s their religion and who are we to judge their religionmay be said by some.  It’s not their religion, it’s a group of bad individuals that have taken people hostage and stood behind religion as a way to defend themselves.  In my opinion, we needed no other justification for using force to topple the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq than that of freeing at the minimum half of their population and to break the leadership of nations built on fear and tyranny.  But it’s not our place to take these actions.  We can’t ask our soldiers (our children) to sacrifice their lives for non-Americans may be the response.  That, to me, is a desire to turn away and hope it changes on its own.  That is the way of most European governments.  If we ignore the problem, it’s no longer a problem.  I find that very short sighted and irrational at its core.  (Like it or not, we have to interact with these nations.  They control a lot of the oil production and our opium supply.  If we trade with them, we are enriching them.  If we are enriching them, we are empowering them.  And I have no desire to empower a group of individuals that thinks of us as the enemy and their women as sheep).

We have become disengaged when it comes to combating basic evil with that evil being the infringement of individual liberties.  And when we do engage, we need to provide an excuse that, for some strange reason, avoids our underlying desire to help people out from underneath oppression.  Now, some will suggest that there is a fine line of helping and imposing our belief system which I would agree with but do we need to be diverted into inaction/misaction now when the evil is so obvious? 

I would point you to this article and this one that got me stirred up.

Courtesy of The Washington Blade

The Supreme Court Justices of Iowa need to be praised for upholding individual rights.  Their decision on April 3rd stating that preventing gay marriage is unconstitutional was a huge milestone for gays, and just as importantly, for all individuals. 

Before I get into this ruling, I need to make it clear that I’m not a lawyer and know little law stuff.

Some, such as Newt Gingrich, will state that the justices went beyond their authority in making this decision, that they went against the people of Iowa, that they are making laws in the courtroom.  Newt, I’ve liked you in the past for your fiscal conservatism, and I thought of you as a peer when it came to favoring individual rights, but you lost me on this.  How could you honestly stand on your soapbox, proclaiming that the Iowa SCJ’s overstepped their duties.  Their duties consist of checking the other two branches of government and ensuring the legislature makes no laws that go against the state constitution.  You have narrowed the job description to “interpreting the law” but that is wrong.  The justice system is there to police the government, not citizens.  Remember Ayn Rand’s words when it came to the U.S. Constitution (and I am extending it to state constitutions):

“Ours was the first government based on and strictly limited by a written document—the Constitution—which specifically forbids it to violate individual rights or to act on whim. The history of the atrocities perpetrated by all the other kinds of governments—unrestricted governments acting on unprovable assumptions—demonstrates the value and validity of the original political theory on which this country was built.”  -from Philosophy:  Who Needs It? by Ayn Rand

That is exactly what they did.  As stated in their summary, “The court reaffirmed that a statute inconsistent with the Iowa Constitution must be declared void, even though it may be supported by strong and deep-seated traditional beliefs and popular opinion.”  How is that inconsistent?  The law, as enacted, attempted to treat some people differently than others based solely on their sexual orientation.  How could anyone defend that?  And even more importantly, the justices did something admirable by suggesting that the definition of marriage should not and can not be defined by the government.  That would just open the door to more government involvement in our personal lives.  They evade my space enough.  I don’t want to provide them with the right to decide who I can and cannot marry.

Now, those that were defending the infringement of individual rights were hoping to convince the justices that it would hurt the stability of opposite sex marriages, that children would be hurt by same sex marriages, and that it would increase the costs to the state government.  Let’s take these one at a time.  I’m straight and happily married to Mrs. H (not Mrs. Hart from Hart to Hart but someone even more sexy and elegant than Stefanie Powers).  If I read the summary opinion correctly, the defendants were arguing that I may be at risk of leaving my wife if same sex marriages were legal.  News Alert:  THE LAW IS NOT PREVENTING ME FROM LEAVING MY WIFE FOR A GUY.  I’m not gay and making gay marriage legal won’t “turn me.”  Concerning the second issue of putting children at risk by allowing gay mariage makes no sense to me.  There are way too many crappy straight parents that should be outlawed before we even think of worrying ourselves about gay parents (yes, Angela Suleman, I’m thinking of you).  Lastly, gay marriages will cost the government too much money?  Please.  Willing to sacrifice basic human rights to save a buck?  Was that used to justify slavery?  The lawyer that put that in should be bitched-slapped.

Lastly, let’s talk about Newt’s comment that the court went against the people of Iowa.  According to a Big Ten poll conducted in Decemeber, only a third oppose recognizing gays’ individual freedom to form a legal bond with a person of the same sex.  Call it ‘marriage’ or ‘civil union’.  It doesn’t matter.  The majority of Iowans believe it is none of their business to get involved in a relationship between two consenting adults.  And you, Newt, should too.

I found your March 28th Opinion piece insulting to my intelligence and demeaning to the accomplishments of all American Individuals. The article displayed your conceitedness, thinking you could mischaracterize past events, take facts out of context, and misstate the thoughts and words of individuals to justify your fantasy land. To respond, I’ll start at the beginning of your manifesto.

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With all the negative, fear based headlines and all the scare being thrown around by our government, I thought it would be worthwhile to write something happy.  So, I selected the 9th grade writing subject “What does America mean to you?”  A lot of my beliefs in individual freedom stem from the environment I was raised in.  Not all, mind you, but a lot.  My wife deserves a lot of the credit, too.

I was raised in a very small town in rural Indiana by, what I believe to be fact, the best parents ever (that’s for Mom if she is reading).  Relatively large and close family.  One side’s ancestry is from Northern Europe and came to this land in the early 1700′s.  They were farmers from what I can tell and active in the fight for freedom.  Low key, understated, and hardworking.  The other side’s ancestry came from Italy in the very early 1900′s, 200 years later.  My Italian grandfather came over at the age of 16, leaving his parents back in Italy.  His travel was paid for by his older brother who came to the US a few years before.  He worked hard to provide for his family and succeeded in providing his children a good foundation.  Though differences existed between them (those from Italy are a little more loud and kiss on the lips when they see you), they shared the same desire; the right to pursue a life of independence, succeed based on their actions, and not to be subjected to the whims of the few.
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Remember the saying “what ever got into kids these days?” Well, I think I found the answer… It’s these enlightened children books that we, parents, give them. The one that bothers me the most is called The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister. The book is about a beautiful fish, new to this part of the ocean, that has shiny, colorful scales. Early on in the book, he is approached by a smaller, younger fish who asks for one of his pretty scales.

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