THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY
Happy Fourth of July! Today we celebrate the birth of the United States of America, the only country on Earth founded on the idea that individuals have rights that the government may not arbitrarily violate for its own benefit or for the benefit of other
This year, the idea of individual rights is under attack. Some people think the government should forcefully override individual rights to classify people into oppressor and victim groups, or to compel behavior for a perceived greater good. This is not a new phenomenon. In fact, it’s a very old argument.
So it seems like a good time to explain the mechanics of building a free country. This is a structure that will work anywhere, regardless of history, geography or culture. And it is a structure that can be destroyed anywhere, even in the United States.
The “fundamental rights of individuals,” wrote Sir William Blackstone, the 18th-century English judge and legal scholar whose work influenced the framers of the United States Constitution, are life, liberty and property. He described the right to “a person’s legal and uninterrupted enjoyment of his life,” the liberty “of changing situations or moving one’s person to whatsoever place one’s own inclination may direct,” and the “absolute right” of property, “which consists in the free use, enjoyment and disposal of all his acquisitions, without any control or diminution, save only by the laws of the land.”
The Constitution went further; it limited, divided and checked the power of government so the laws of the land would never be the arbitrary rulings of a monarch or the dictates of an unaccountable gang of rulers. The principle underlying this new structure was stated in the Declaration of Independence in 1776: “We hold these truths to be self-ev
ident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
It’s impossible to overstate what a revolutionary idea these words embodied: the purpose of government is to secure the rights and the liberty of individuals.
When life, liberty and property are protected from arbitrary government actions, it becomes possible to undertake longterm efforts that produce phenomenal accomplishments. People are able to
study, work, invest, invent, farm, build, research and engineer over a period of years or even decades, secure in the knowledge that they will eventually enjoy the benefits from their efforts.
But when individual rights are not protected, it’s useless to put hard work into a long-term project. All the benefits could be confiscated, nationalized or otherwise diverted to compensate somebody else.
That’s why countries that protect individual rights enjoy growing economies and a rising standard of living, while countries that have a different governing philosophy rely on aid or theft to keep stagnating economies going.
When a country moves toward freedom, prosperity follows. When it moves away from freedom, suffering follows. And violence.
In countries where the
government owns or controls everything and everyone’s economic security is subject to the whim of government officials, individuals are effectively forced to choose sides in a gang war for control of the government. The fight for power is vicious and allconsuming. For individuals living under that system, the only path to success is to stay in the good graces of the right gang leader, and then do whatever it takes to keep that gang in power.
In a free country, where the government’s power is limited and individual rights are protected, individuals have a path to economic security that doesn’t depend on who’s serving in government. Property rights and liberty are secure regardless of which party is in control.
During the last fifteen months, the United States has been through a grisly experiment in total government
control and the suspension of individual rights, one that’s still going on in California. Because of the fear of COVID-19, government officials imposed restrictions on the public that were unprecedented in American history. Then the government decided arbitrarily whose rights were worthy of protection (for example, protesters) and whose were unimportant (for example, worshippers). The government decided who was “essential” and must work, and who was “nonessential” and could not. Some people lost jobs. Some people lost everything.
Last year, 4 in 10 adults in the U.S. reported symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorder (56% of those age 18-24), up from 1 in 10 the previous year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Here in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom refuses
to give up his emergency powers and restore constitutional government that protects individual rights. While other states have lifted pandemic restrictions and lived to tell the story, California remains under arbitrary government control.
It is not a coincidence that California’s unemployment rate, at 7.9%, is the third highest in the nation, as is the state’s “underemployment” rate, which includes part-time and occasional workers, at 18.4%. CalMatters columnist Dan Walters dug into the first-quarter numbers from the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis and found that while California’s economic output has increased, two-thirds of states have seen greater increases, and California’s increase in personal income was the second lowest of any state.
By moving away from freedom, California’s government has created uncertainty about the eventual value of a long-term effort. Arbitrary government control is having the effect that it has everywhere and always — it’s a disincentive to study, work, invest, invent, farm, build, research and engineer. Why bother if it can all be shut down again at the governor’s whim?
California has become the nation’s leading producer of poverty and sadness.
Freedom is indispensable to the well-being of humanity, and freedom is made out of the protection of individual rights under a government of limited power.
Happy Independence Day.