The far right contends that its version of freedom is America’s central value, often to the exclusion of any other value. The far right is often heard saying such things as “let freedom ring” when they are extolling the benefits of a survival-of-the-fittest market economy and society. But there is nothing principled about a survival-of-the-fittest, dog-eat-dog, winner-take-all concept of freedom, nor is it very likely that that is what the American Founders intended, as the far right wrongly claims in its call for a return to the Constitution.
The American founders and the political
philosophers on whom they relied knew that there is a big difference between a
nation that is free for all and a “free-for-all.” But the
political right has mistaken the latter for the former. How do we know?
Consider John Locke, on whose philosophy the Declaration of Independence was
based—
John Locke dubbed the free-for-all idea of liberty a “state of war.” A state of war is not liberty. A state of
war leads to dominating coercive power, Locke said. Whether by a king or
an entrenched oligarchy, such power undermines the “life, liberty and property”
of others. Locke and the American founders after him rejected the state
of war, free-for-all conception of freedom because it consumes itself, as its
ultimate end is the dominance by the one or the few of the many. It is
the demise of liberty for all.
It’s
time to reject the far right’s state of war on the ideal of liberty on which
this nation was founded. That ideal (even if it wasn't fully achieved at the founding) is what the Constitution was designed to preserve. Liberty for all, not mere freedom for the
strongest (or the richest), requires a legal/political context that recognizes
and maintains everyone’s inherent right to liberty. Locke and the American
founders called it the “social contract.” That’s what the U.S.
Constitution is and why, as it clearly states, its purpose is to “establish
Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote
the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our
Posterity.”
How might this play out in public policy debates? Take health care
for example. Making healthcare available to everyone, even with a mandate requiring everyone to have insurance, is more aligned with the
American founders’ ideal of liberty for all (and far less coercive) than a health care system dominated by an
unrestrained insurance industry in a Darwinian “free-for-all” healthcare
market, where people die because of lack of care.
