Peter Berkowitz, Progressives, and the Principles of Individual Freedom

Policy Review: War-Torn Democrats

[P]rogressives [...] affirm the universal application of the principles of individual freedom.

This is utterly untrue.

Where is the progressives' universal concern for the principles of individual freedom when applied to, for example, the business owner who honestly thinks the labor of an employee is not worth paying a mandated minimum wage and who would otherwise earn less if it wasn't for the state's threat to violently take away that business owner's freedom?

Where is the progressives' universal concern for the principle of individual freedom when applied to, for example, the parents who honestly think they will do a superior job of educating their children and yet who still pay for the public educations of other children because the state has threatened to violently take away their freedom if they do not "contribute"?

I could list examples for days because the thousands of concrete issues at stake boil down to the myriad ways the federal, state, and local governments habitually, ritually, repeatedly, consistently, and openly violate the principle of individual freedom...ways that are championed by progressives on grounds that habitually, ritually, repeatedly, consistently, and openly set aside that principle in order to accomplish some goal.

If this was a man who could think straight, he'd realize the total insanity in making the above statement and then saying later:

The centerpiece of [Peter Beinart]'s prescriptions, as it was for the contributors to [Will Marshall]'s book, is the call for extensive new programs for the economic and political development of the Middle East. Beinart wants the U.S. to fund these programs generously while carrying them out in cooperation with our European allies, the UN, the World Bank, the IMF, and the Arab Muslim nations for whom the programs are intended. In theory this is appealing.

Not a single word about from where the resources for these generous programs would come: the taxpayer, who would otherwise overwhelmingly not voluntarily donate such sums of his or her wealth if it were not for the threat of police aggression and its occasional follow-through. The billions currently available to the states' treasuries would never have left the possession of individuals without that system of aggression.

Such robbery would be decried as a violation of individual freedom in the context of the street, but progressives are constitutionally incapable of carrying that abstraction to greater levels once "the community" or "the common good" is invoked.

Similarly, see John Kerry's clarion call for the wholesale forced collectivization of the remaining marking in American health care:

Here's my bottom line - these are the four principles I'm going to go to the mat to make real:

FIRST - Every American, and I mean everybody, must have health coverage by 2012.

SECOND - To get there, we start with kids first. They're born; they're enrolled in health care. They go to child care, they're enrolled. They go to school, they're enrolled. No "ifs," "ands," or "buts," every child gets health care - automatically, immediately, every child in America gets health care now.

THIRD - We must and will control the skyrocketing premiums, co-pays, and exclusions that make a mockery of the insurance hard-working families pay for month after month. No longer will families be pushed into bankruptcy by medical bills they can't pay -- no longer will sons and daughters have to choose between paying for a doctor's bill for one child or college tuition for another -- it is time to finally guarantee that as health care costs are held down, Americans get the health care they need and deserve.

FOURTH - and finally, instead of telling tens of millions to wait until they are sick enough to go to an emergency room, we must and will assure high quality and preventive care for every American.

Holdouts - those exercising their individual freedom to abstain for their own reasons - get no consideration. They'll get escalatingly unpleasant notices that finally cumulate in a visit from law enforcement, an audience with a court, and a relocation to prison. Your desire to retain the parental prerogative in your child's well-being, as well as the child's own rightful degree of individual liberty in making these decisions, are irrelevant. The state knows and judges better than you. If progressives cared about individual freedom, they'd recognize that concept for the fantastic danger it is, for it undermines all promises to respect individual freedom and opens the door to actual rights violations rather than imagined. Once you admit individuals are not capable or responsible enough, in principle, to act in their own interests, you've kick-started the slave mentality.

When Kerry asks of progressives, "what are you willing to fight for to make health care work for everyone?" he wants to know how much of their tolerance for individual freedom they are willing to set aside. Doctors who set their own prices...not acceptable. Insurance companies following the terms of their contracts and denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions...not acceptable. People who choose to shoulder the full risk of potential medical expenses down the road...not acceptable.

You will change their ways, or face people who can hurt, kidnap, and steal from you because they have state-granted immunities to do so.

Kerry wants to dictate what our health care options are and how those services are rendered. Kerry - and everyone who doesn't flatly reject his "principles" on their face as a result of the tyranny they imply - sees individuals as means to an end.

This is why I'll never be a "progressive."

Posted by Drizzten at August 02, 2006 02:55 PM