Over the last couple of years
I’ve been reading a lot about the various types of political and economic
philosophies. This led me into a study of freedom and what being free really
means. Being a veteran of the Vietnam War and having the privilege of meeting and
serving those who have fought and suffered greatly for our country I have a
love of our country and especially our freedoms.
As I read the thoughts of the
founding fathers, I came to realize that this essay should be a discussion of freedom
from two points of view personal and economic. Personal freedoms are those
freedoms guaranteed by the constitution that affect how we choose to live our
lives. Economic freedom is the right of individuals to earn a living doing what
they choose whether it is working for someone or being in business. In a
perfect world economic freedom and personal freedom are free from encumbrances
by governments, monopolies, unions, trusts and all such restraints. We do not
live in a perfect world and there must, by necessity, be certain restraints on
our individual and economic freedoms. We must give up some freedoms for the
common good. It is important therefore to understand the nature of freedom and
all it means. It is especially important in an age when freedom is in question
and in some cases being redefined.
As a result of my studies I came
to the conclusion that much of what I am is the direct result of how I used my
freedom. Years ago I read Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Emil
Frankl. It changed my life. In his book Frankl tells of his time in a German
concentration camp and how he survived. He concluded that though we do not
often choose our circumstances we do choose how to react to them. It is a
powerful philosophy that gives each of us the freedom to choose how we act and
react to any situation. I have the freedom to choose how I live, act or react
to the conditions I am born into or are forced into by circumstances.
I chose early in life to make
choices that didn’t work so well. I choose throughout my school years not to
fight those who were bullying me. One bad choice led to more bad choices. I
choose not to be involved in any school activities. I choose not to study which
resulted in poor grades and two years of going to summer school. I choose not
to apply myself and limited my choices after I graduation. Because I limited my
choices there was only two places for me to go the factory and wait to be
drafted or enlist. I enlisted in the Army, it ended up being one of the best
choices I ever made.
Sources of freedom:
Freedom can have only two
sources. It either comes from the state or from a source greater than the state,
the creator; however the creator may be defined. For the purpose of this essay
I define the creator as God the Almighty the Unchangeable. I do this because
there needs be one final and complete authority untainted by mankind, the source
of all things and the definer of all things. Only God the Almighty the
Unchangeable fits this requirement. Therefore, if freedom comes from God the Almighty
the Unchangeable, the state cannot define freedoms because they are given by an
unchangeable power greater than the state.
The key to freedom is the
believed source of freedom. If freedom comes from our creator, as is stated in
our Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these
truths to be self-evident, 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. . . ”
Our freedoms then are rights not given by the state but
by God the Almighty the Unchangeable a source greater than governments and therefore
are considered as being “unalienable”, “self evident” and universal. They are
not dependent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of any government, culture,
tribe or any other entity man may devise. However, if freedom is a condition given
by the state then the state not only defines freedom but controls those
freedoms it gives.
Personal Freedom
Freedom allows each of us to
choose to live and act as we will without any unwarranted restrictions. It
allows all the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
It allows us to work at wages determined by ourselves and the employer or to
build a business without interference by the state or other parties, e.g., unions,
trusts, monopolies. It allows the consumer to purchase in a free market those
items we wish at a price the market will bear. Not a price determined by the
state or any other entity.
Personal freedom allows each of
us the right to make choices right or wrong and live with the results of those
choices. Freedom means that we may do what we will with the things we have
earned. But freedom also means we are responsible for our outcomes, our
choices, our decisions, and that we must accept responsibility for them. If we choose to not learn we are then
responsible for that decision and the limits of being unlearned. However if we
choose to be constantly learning and improving ourselves then we will reap the
benefits of that choice.
Economic Freedom
Economic freedom is too often
over looked and minimized. But in economic freedom all other freedoms are made
stronger. Economic freedom gives us the power to be all we want to be. It opens
doors to opportunity. It also means that we are responsible for how much we earn
and how we earn it.
Economic freedom allows us to
work at the wages and benefits negotiated between ourselves and the employer. Wages
offered will, in an unencumbered capitalistic system adjust to a price the market
will bear i.e., if pay is too little workers will go where wages are higher; if
the pay is good better workers will apply. It is individual choice where the
worker is free to accept employment and the employer is free to employ at a
wage and benefit package agreed upon by each.
Economic freedom pushes us to
improve ourselves so that we may require better pay for our skills. The
unskilled worker will, by the choice of being unskilled, earn less. By not
acquiring marketable skills he limits himself. While the worker who wants more
will, by necessity, learn a skill set that will make him more valuable to an
employer. Dependent upon skills and motivation economic freedom motivates each of
us to succeed as we are able. No one is kept back and no one is pushed forward.
The Key to Real Freedom:
The key to freedom is individual
responsibility. If we want true freedom then we must accept responsibility for
our choices. We have a tendency not to accept responsibility for our actions.
This creates a scapegoat mentality for our failures. We have a tendency to blame,
the rich, immigrants, undocumented workers, heartless businesses, and mother
and father anyone but ourselves for our failures.
In blaming others for our
failures we inhibit personal growth. A good friend of many years lost his
business due to divorce but rather than blaming his ex he opened a new
business. He poured his heart and soul into his garage learning what it takes
to please a customer and keep them coming back. When he finally retired and moved
to Wisconsin the young man he sold the business kept the original name. I asked
him why, he told me because it had such a good reputation. He would lose money
if he changed it.
I have a family member who
worked hard growing up in a blue collar family. He started working in the steel
mills in Chicago and when the plant closed he was out of work. He found a new
job and was given an opportunity to go into sales. He could have stayed in the
shop but instead he made the choice to stretch himself. He went into sales. He worked hard and became
a great success in sales making more than he did in the factory.
Years ago I worked with a friend
in a catering business. Bill, (not his real name), was a quadriplegic having
been injured in an auto accident while on active duty. Bill could have
collected disability from the VA, social security and stayed home. But Bill even with all the health problems
that comes with being a quadriplegic chose to do something. He started a
catering business though the Paralyzed Veterans of America. One day we were at
a luncheon meeting and as lunch was being served Bill asked me to cut his meat
and feed him. I was taken aback because Bill though severely disabled never
seemed that way to me. Later I asked him why he was working. He told me that he
still had his mind and thought his body didn’t work his mind did. I learned a
lot watching Bill and others in PVA some choose to be disabled while some with
the same conditions chose not to be.
During the early 1980s I was the
executive director of the Vietnam Veterans Leadership Program. I was responsible for developing jobs and
counseling veterans on job seeking skills. I counseled many veterans who were
unemployed. Several were so because they refused to accept certain positions
because the pay was lower than their previous union jobs. Many said that they
were worth more than what was being offered. The problem was that many were unskilled
union workers whose plant had closed. They were no longer viewed as valuable at
the union wage they were once paid. Some veterans worked to retrain themselves
and started over at much less pay but many after a few years had surpassed
their union wages. While others remained unemployed for years only to continue
as unskilled and unemployable refusing to learn or retrain. Choices affected
the outcome. Freedom allows us to choose while responsibility forces us to
choose wisely.
Benjamin Franklin said in Poor
Richard’s Almanac and other writings that the poor should never be made comfortable
in their poverty. But that is exactly what we’ve done. We have given the poor
no challenge to succeed. Welfare resulted in generations who never worked and who
are content to collect aid including healthcare. While others work and pay the
taxes that support them. As a result of our misguided benevolence the poor live
in areas of high crime, rampant addiction and helplessness. Welfare is simply not and never has been the
answer. We have lost generations of business leaders, religious leaders,
community leaders and scientists. By trapping them in welfare we have robbed them
of their freedom to be the best they can be.
Many would rather blame someone
for their condition than accept the responsibility and change their
circumstances. I didn’t study hard in school. As a result I limited my choices.
I couldn’t go to college, nor could I go to a trade school because my grades
were poor. When I graduated in the spring of 1964 I knew I was going to be
drafted sooner than later so I chose to join the Army. The Army allowed me to make choices and held
me responsible for those choices. While in Germany I made bad choices resulting
in two article 15s. The Army took corrective action and I learned to succeed
because of it. I learned what it takes to make a good soldier. When I left active
duty I was a sergeant and when I retired from the Army National Guard I was a
First Sergeant acting Sergeant Major.
When I was discharged from
active duty I choose to go to college and get a degree. I choose to work for
the government. In choosing to get a degree I broadened my career horizons. My choice to work for the government resulted
in an over forty year career helping veterans. Positive choices brought me
positive things.
Over the
years I have made many bad choices. The difference for me and what helped me
through them was to accept that I made a wrong choice. Once we learn how to accept
responsibility then we can learn how to correct the choice process. Many though
would rather blame someone or accept victimhood rather than accept responsibility.
A child of
the 1900s and one who saw sweat shops first hand and a survivor of the Great
Depression my grandfather truly believed that big business was the scourge of
the “little man”. I loved my grandfather but over the years I have learned that
he was wrong on many of the things he believed. He believed that the little man
had no chance except for unions and the government. I have realized that there are no little men
just men who limit themselves with small thoughts; those who have no dreams and
are content to live lives of quiet desperation.
These are the
cold timid souls Teddy Roosevelt wrote of in his piece the Arena. They criticize
those who take risks and by daring succeed, but they themselves never get into
the game never take risks. They are not like those who dare to dream big dreams
and work to accomplish them. Who as Roosevelt says, fail again and again but never
give up until they have succeeded. They know that they may fail but if they fail
they fail by daring greatly. In the end they have the knowledge that they will
never be with those cold timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
Closing:
Our freedoms
must by the nature of our society be limited both personally and economically.
Clearly we cannot allow business to put on the market those things that are
dangerous to the consumer. Caveat Emptor at this point in our society simply is
not enough to protect a population of millions. However government protection
should not and cannot be so pervasive that it limits innovation by oppressive
government regulation. Especially government regulations based upon politics
and political favor not the good of the people.
Nor can we allow
someone’s free speech to by its nature to cause physical harm to others. Nor
can we allow demonstrations where public safety and property are damaged. We
must however, be judicious in how we limit Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Press;
Freedom of Assembly; the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Many of those who served
this nation to protect our freedoms gave their bodies and lives so we may be
free. We should not and cannot sell our freedoms bought as such a great price
cheaply.
When one freedom
is limited all freedoms are limited. Freedom is like a rope where one strand
weakens the whole rope. Offensive words and offensive speech may be hard to
hear but not allowing it is a step closer to the loss of free speech. Limiting
the freedom of assembly especially after violent demonstrations may sound good
at first hearing. But limiting freedom of assembly may also affect the practice
of freedom of religion and freedom of speech. There are some who want to limit
the second amendment. Believing that limiting the possession of fire arms will
save lives. But history teaches that when the people give up the right to
protect themselves their government becomes more and more oppressive. Freedom
carries with it opportunity and danger but the alternative to being free is being
oppressed.
A culture of Victims and Victimizers:
The acceptance of victimhood is rampant
in our nation and is a direct assault on individual freedoms. When we accept
victimhood we give control of our lives and future to those we accuse of being
victimizers. Victimhood allows us to
never take responsibility for our decisions and actions it’s always someone
else’s fault.
The victim mentality like a genetic disease is
passed from parent to child. Never making their children responsible for their
actions and rarely requiring them to account for wrong decisions. Parents perpetuate yet another victim who
accepts failure as being someone else’s fault. There is rarely self examination
as to why they failed or fell which limits their growth. We teach our children
by both words and those unseen acts that are seen none the less. I remember when
I was a preteen being at a friend’s house and him showing me his dad’s stash of
Playboys, hidden nicely in the back of his closet. Our children learn how to
act from us what we do, what we say and how we say it all impacts them. Why are
we surprised then when they do what we do? Act how we act? Talk how we talk?
Many of those who identify
themselves as victims are good people who have bought into the idea that they
cannot succeed because someone or something is keeping them down. Our own
government does much to perpetuate the myth of victimhood. Let’s face it many a
politician stays in office and in power by pandering to those who are in the
victim category. As do other community leaders who make fortunes and get
political power pandering to the victim mentality among their community group.
These leaders promise government
help for everything. They feed into the “us versus them” mentality. Rather than
provide incentives to succeed and encourage success they do everything they can
to keep the poor and disenfranchised exactly that. Perpetuating an ever
increasing class of helpless hapless victims who believe they are incapable of
any success without help.
Corporations have become succumbed
to disease of victimhood. They blame the
government and congress, the economy, unions and foreign competition for their
failures. The simple fact is that corporations fail because of incompetence,
failure to adapt to changing environments, failure to innovate and not because
of outside factors; though those factors may contribute in the end they are not
the root cause of failure. The bailing out of corporations who are “too big to
fail” relieves them of the responsibility of doing those things that make for
success.
Corporate welfare is no better than
welfare for the poor in fact it’s worse. The poor have limited chances for
success while corporations have everything needed to succeed. Common sense
shows that if a corporation fails it’s because of their mismanagement or
failure to adapt to a changing environment both financial and physical. While a
poor person who fails often fails because of his environment, poor education
and poor parenting. It is a given that there needs to be something in place
that helps those less fortunate to succeed in life and not to keep them bound
to the state for financial support. Corporate welfare however is never the
right thing to do. It keeps in business those who because of incompetence
should fail.
While failing may devastating for
those employed. Failing will in the long term make room for those corporations
who are stronger and more able to adapt and succeed. It will also keep existing corporations sharp
and strong. Survival of the fittest in the corporate world as in nature creates
a stronger and more able species and business.
The public is best served when business
are forced by competition to adapt or die. It’s better for the public because
strong competition brings innovation and better products and lower prices. It’s
better for business because it forces business to keep competitive and not to
become complacent like several of our automakers, airlines, and such. It’s
better for labor because forces organized labor to negotiate contracts with an
eye to keeping their employer able to compete in a competitive world market.
Our current system of protectionism, monopoly and cronyism are destroying our
national economy and government’s direct involvement in business stifles
growth, competition and innovation by over protective regulation and regulation
based upon politics.
Causes:
Whenever humankind is involved no
matter how great the cause or perceived solution we will find some way to take
unfair advantage of the weak. There is
no point in human history where humankind has not applied the first law of
evolution, survival of the fittest. Though the definition of fittest may have
changed over the centuries the one fact remains those who are mentally and/or
physically fit always exert control over those who are not. Those thinking socialism, communism,
liberalism, capitalism or any other ism will work are fooling themselves. As
long as humans are involved every cause no matter how noble or great will be
corrupted and serve the “more equal than others” group.
There is good cause why socialism
and communism have come into being. The genesis of socioeconomic movements is
the direct result of businesses and rulers who made power and greed a way of
life. As the industrial revolution started to change the way goods were manufactured
some business leaders over worked and miss treated their workers. The tragic
results of these abuses are part of history disasters like the Triangle Waist
fire of March 1911 and other such disasters; child labor, unsafe factories,
mine disasters all cause labor unrest. The six day work week and low pay and
many other abuses all created the environment of unrest. In all to many cases governments
as well as business leaders allowed this
mistreatment and in some cases governments even encouraged it as a means of
keeping the “the great unwashed” in their place.
In the end though, it is we the
people who allow others to abuse us. It is we the people who allowed the Hitler
types and the so called robber barons to thrive. It is we the people who
allowed one form of tyranny to be replaced by another as was done in Russia in
1918. It is we the people who stood by
and watched as Hitler murdered innocents in the 1930s. If history teaches anything it’s that mankind
is corrupt and that it is impossible for us to consistently do what is right.
It is especially impossible without a moral compass given by a power greater
than ourselves. I believe that God the Almighty the Unchangeable fills that need;
no matter how he may be defined or worshiped.
There are those who believe in no
greater power than mankind. They believe that man will become a better, higher
more compassionate animal over time. If there is no higher power then man must
seek to leave a better world for his progeny, survival of the species. It is
only logical then if we are nothing more than intelligent animals that we want
our species to continue and to continue to evolve. That can only happen if we
are obedient to the laws of evolution. We must insure that only those who are
capable pass on their genes. Weakening the gene pool weakens the species leaving,
as with all animals that have become extinct, a weak and vulnerable species
incapable of adapting to an always changing environment. Therefore it is
important to our survival that each human learn to survive and thrive on his
own. I choose to believe however that God the Creator has better plans for us.
END
