The Patriot Post® · So You Think You Live in a Free Country?

Freedom. What does that mean? Can it be defined, quantified, measured?

Last year, federal bureaucrats wrote and implemented 90,000 pages of new regulations. It is possible that you aren’t affected by any of them, or even that you agree with each and every rule they promulgated. However, somewhere, somebody wanted to do something that is now prohibited by each of the new rules. THEIR freedom has unquestionably been curtailed. Freedom shrank by 90,000 pages last year.

Do you have a magical freedom that is not impacted by the shrinking freedom of others? John Donne said, “Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.” As shrinking freedom becomes accepted as the norm, whatever freedom you cherish will eventually shrink, as well. Somebody will become a bureaucrat who thinks that you have too much freedom, and they will write a rule that will, in turn, take away the ability to do something that you have always been able to do, something you cannot imagine.

It is astounding how proscribed our freedom to travel has become. The vehicles we purchase are so regulated that they are becoming indistinguishable from one another. The fuel we purchase is regulated to the part per billion of what it can contain and cannot contain. As you drive, you are required to obtain a license and insurance, your speed is regulated, both maximum and (on interstates) minimum, and many actions you take are subject to various laws, such as alcohol and drug use, cell phone use, turn signals, windshield wipers, horn, obstructions to your vision, backing up, parking, how and when you can overtake a slower vehicle, turning on and off lights, and on and on. If you are under a certain age, the number and age of your passengers may be regulated. You say that all you care about is the freedom to choose your destination, and as long as that remains unfettered, you are still free? Wait! You wanted to go to a national park? A military base? Sorry, you need advance permission from the government: Their rules, you see. A joke in the old Soviet Union was that you had total freedom, as long as you wanted to do exactly what the government wanted you to do. As your choices become more and more restricted, you are less and less free, whether you actually desire to do the things prohibited to you or not.

Children are the most precious resource in any country. Some parents (very few, but some) abuse, neglect, and even kill their children. Sad as that is, it’s a fact that we have to deal with. To protect our resource, and to express our care for the helpless, we agreed that we need to keep people from harming their children, so we made laws and rules for parenting. The state – we, the people – decided that it was necessary to intrude upon the most basic unit of society, the family, and tell parents how to raise their children, under penalty of law. I think that it is arguable that parents know what is best for their children, and in cases where harm is done to the children, the common criminal law is perfectly able to administer justice. And I think it is arguable that promoting healthy families by removing incentives for their breakup is the optimal role for the government, rather than creating a society in which unmarried mothers are subsidized for remaining unmarried. But instead, today we have rules for how many bedrooms and toilets and windows and meals and inoculations and trips to the hairdresser, and the list is endless. Am I pointing to a rule and saying THAT one is a bad rule? I am sure I could, but what I am pointing at is the fact that we are no longer free to raise our own children. Hillary Clinton wrote a book entitled It Takes A Village to Raise a Child. In fact, when villages undertake to raise children in orphanages, we find the absolute worst outcomes possible. All the research actually shows that it takes a caring family to raise a child. Opting for regulated child rearing instead of promoting healthy, free families has been an easy choice for us. It is not even debated. They are good rules. If we don’t like the results, maybe we just need more rules. No one should have the freedom to be a bad parent, should they? (Let’s see, exactly who is it that rules whether that decision you just made is a good one? Does it matter? Midwives? Home schooling? Vaccines? Genetically modified foods? Raw milk? Smoking or guns in a home with small children? Religious instruction? Eventually there will be enough rules that even you feel less free.)

Almost every aspect of financial transactions is strictly regulated, from traditional banking to investments and insurance to retirement; the options you have and the forms you fill out to show you deserve them are all mandated.

Even before ObamaCare, the federal government had moved to regulate and proscribe all aspects of medical care through Medicare and Medicaid; and many states have regulated medical professionals and health insurance providers.

There are many bureaucracies dedicated to dictating how you use your own property, starting with the local zoning board and planning commission and continuing up to the federal EPA and other departments, who all weigh in on what might or might not be allowed, and other myriad agencies who decide who is qualified to make any changes you might desire. If you want to buy a horse, add a porch to your house, or landscape your yard, there is someone you need to check with before you do it to avoid running afoul of the law. Whenever possible, for your convenience, they will attempt to prohibit the manufacture or sale of gadgets they disapprove, like toilets and light bulbs.

We have to have laws and all kinds of rules about the workplace. There apparently is not a single person in the United States of America who is an adult, capable of determining whether he is better off in his present job or if he would be well served by finding another one. And there is not an employer who would value retaining current employees by treating them with respect, rather than chasing them away with unreasonable demands and low wages. Somehow We, the People find it necessary to bind employers and employees with myriad demands for compliance with every sort of good practice. Every rule is a good rule, and they keep people from making mistakes.

The point of freedom is that it enables you to make a mistake. You can do something that others think is a bad idea. If it turns out badly, you pay the price. If the conventional wisdom is wrong, you reap the benefits. Codification of the conventional wisdom crushes creativity. It imprisons those who march to a different drummer. It prevents progress. It stifles a society, even a society that has broad agreement on the rules.

The greatest loss of personal freedom I have experienced came decades ago in basic training as a new enlistee in the United States Air Force. Uniform wasn’t something we WORE, it was something we WERE, with identical haircuts and clothing, marching together as a unit, our every movement and utterance choreographed by our drill sergeant. There will be no smiling without permission, recruit. And yet, we were all doing exactly what we wanted to do. We were volunteers to a situation of total submission, and the last thing we wanted was to look different.   Just like all of us, now.