What Kind of Ideology Is This?

I don’t trust anyone who has a ready answer before they have heard the question. That’s a habit of people in love with their own ideologies. When was the last time an ideology did anything for anyone other than professors and politicians-- two groups that have a heavy stake in tailoring debates around a foregone conclusion. People who view all public decisionmaking as a choice between freedom and tyranny, as many extremists do, are always and without exception in the service of tyrants.

Enough with the tortured logic employed by free-market fundamentalists to avoid the obvious, though boring and often technocratic answers to society’s demands for things like non-carcinogenic food, clean water, health care or housing. I’ve heard all too damn many fat, pampered call-in listeners on AM radio go on about the idea that taxation is theft as they cruise down our nation’s interstates in a subsidized-gas-filled, safety-tested SUV.

America expends vastly more political energy on rancorous debates on the size of government, rather than considering what government does, and the a la carte menu of palatable alternatives. It’s not the size. It’s what it does, how well it does it, and what our options are as a nation. Before any more decisions are made, I propose that:

1. Anybody in power who tells you that there are no tradeoffs or compromises between freedom and security should be required to answer whether this principle should apply to those outside the top tax bracket, and how that principle of freedom will be secured given the high costs of basic things like education, health care, and rent.

2. Any democratically-elected representative of the People who says that government has no role in arbitrating people’s preferred balancing acts of freedom and security should have to supply an alternate explanation for what they’re doing for their constituents.

3. Any public figure who uses the words “freedom” or “liberty” in the same sentence should be required to either a. explore the freedom and liberty of living on the streets with a mental illness, b. in a backwoods trailer choosing between food stamps and squirrel, or c. explain how freedom and tyranny can be explained without also taking security into account (if they can).

It’s not an absolute choice between freedom and tyranny. It never was. Security, be it corporeal, martial, or social is why we bother with a government. Security is a buffer between freedom and tyranny. Governments are in the business of supplying security to their citizens. Why? Because they’re better at it than a shotgun.  

Here is the equation that should underpin all ideological discussions:

Ideology = (Freedom-Tyranny) / Security

Freedom, tyranny, and security are moving parts. You trade between them to balance whatever your ideological outcome should be. If any piece is missing, the whole thing falls apart.

It’s good to be suspicious of an ideology whose logical conclusion is to tell the government to stop looking into the dealings of oil companies, hospitals, or other enterprise in the public interest, as if the government is the problem. It’s important to be skeptical about who is behind the idea of abolishing the IRS and having the wealthy man and his butler pay the same low tax rate, especially if you’re the butler. Why? Whose ideas are these? Who stands to benefit most? Does this ideology employ security to balance the level of freedoms it demands?

That distinctly American sentiment towards small government in all instances throws a warm blanket of righteousness over some fairly cold, hard questions that need to be asked.  People who talk a lot about freedom and small government usually gloss over the caveat that you’ll be on your own in their concept of things, much like our simian ancestors in the jungle were. That’s security (or a lack thereof). When cornered, many of those same people will happily declare their indifference or outright contempt for anyone who can’t make it in their social-darwinist utopia. Many of the freedom and small government set confuse their in-born advantages in the pecking order with personal virtue.  These are the values that result from a more or less absent concept of security. This is an exact description of Ron and Rand Paul.

What do I mean? To confuse a right to health care as slavery for its providers is to confuse a right to security under the law as slavery to police and lawyers. It’s savagely stupid and it’s precisely what Senator Rand Paul did last week in a hearing on health care. It’s an ideology that is completely indifferent to matters of personal security beyond what an individual can conjure up for himself. It goes against some pretty basic human ideas.

Let’s get real here. There will be tradeoffs if we’re to be a moral country. Services will cost money. One person’s freedom to do something (e.g., owning guns) is another person’s freedom from that same thing (getting shot). The market is an important allocator of resources, but it’s neither moral, nor functional beyond the scale of a lemonade stand without some outside rules. Even then, is it better to rely on the person in front of you getting sick because Billy didn’t wash his hands, or would you rather know that the lemonade’s safe to drink because someone’s paid to check it out? The world is just too complicated to view things as simple choices between freedom and tyranny. To do so is dangerous and nasty.

It’s all well and good to be fans of freedom and liberty. I like being able to do what I want. But like most of us, I have some concept of when my freedom to do something becomes another’s tyranny. Like most of us, I recognize the moral repugnance of leaving people free to die or live in squalor when it’s well within our power to improve their lot.

American ideology does in fact deal heavily in security. Americans accept that we must balance our own freedoms with those of others. American government must provide some answers to what is a right and what is a privilege. We fight over these things, and we should. We must engage one another not only on what are personal rights, but also on what is right and wrong. The true apostates to American ideology are those who don’t share these beliefs, preferring to value their own personal freedom above all else. I say let them have it.