By “liberty”, we have to mean “freedom.” A basic premise of our Founding Fathers was man’s right to the freedom to live his life without interference from other individuals or government. There is one caveat: one’s actions must be limited by rationality and respect for the equal rights of others. And government’s proper role is to protect all of our rights by preventing all violations of rights. All voluntary actions among men that do not impose force on others are acceptable, and all forms of coercion are not.
Capitalism is the only political system that upholds individual rights - life, liberty and one’s pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately, misrepresentations of “liberty” have been destroying them; e.g. by equating needs with rights. Economic freedom means freedom to act (or not), to rise (or fall); but not to economic equality. Why have we been accepting such destruction? In the name of what could that be acceptable?
Freedom and economic progress are highly correlated. Until the 20th century, America truly upheld the principle of freedom, and thus became an exceptional country. But we have since been continually compromising that principle as we have abandoned reason and rationality in our actions. We have allowed the initiation of force to infiltrate our system in the name of “altruism.” Instead of supporting the moral principle that man has a right to his own life and liberty, too many of us have rationalized that we must sacrifice ourselves for others. Some use religion to justify that, and others use collectivism (the political expression of altruism). Both rely on emotions to compromise our liberty.
We must evaluate every government action (or proposal) by how well it defends all people’s right to liberty as explained above. Ditto for the Presidential candidates.
For example, Rick Santorum supports States banning birth control, a clear violation of rights. On the other hand, President Obama wanted a mandate for insurance-provided birth control, equally violating. And when Republicans argued for an exemption for religious organizations, Obama “compromised” by eliminating birth control products from the insurance policies for such organizations, and instead forced those insurance companies to independently offer the products to the organizations’ employees without cost. Does Obama really think that that resolved the issue, or that one immoral mandate is better than another?
What is more troubling is Obama’s argument that the health insurance mandate is compatible with free markets; or that it resolves the “free-rider” problem, as if replacing free emergency care with free health insurance increases freedom. And one shouldn’t forget his repudiation of our separation of powers as he intimidated the Supreme Court and said that their overturning the HC law would be an act of judicial activism.
