Freedom is sacred to those on the left side of the political spectrum.  It is our central domain.  Progressives are almost exclusively anti-authoritarian, freedom loving individuals.  From instigating independence movements against tyrants, to fighting for the liberty of human rights, to confronting the oppression of slavery, to standing up for free speech, Liberals stand for Liberty.

Freedom is in my blood, always has been.  The study of and exercise in freedom has been central to my character my entire life, and I would rather die than be cowed into sacrificing my freedoms.   However, freedom is a nebulous concept.  Similar to art or music, it is difficult to define, but you know it when it’s there.  You can feel it.

Definitions

According to Wikipedia “Freedom is the right to act according to ones will without being held up by the power of others. From a philosophical point of view, it can be defined as the capacity to determine your own choices. It can be defined negatively as an absence of subordination, servitude and constraint.” Expanding on that, “Liberty is a concept of political philosophy and identifies the condition in which an individual has the right to act according to his or her own will“

Merriam-Webster defines it as “The absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action.”

Dictionary.com continues along this theme, “the power to exercise choice and make decisions without constraint from within or without.”

Anarchy and Governance

There is of course an inherent contradiction here.  When ones person’s freedom infringes another’s, the freedom of the first must be restricted.  For instance, the ‘right’ to go around raping and murdering by psychopaths is prohibited so that people can enjoy the right not be raped and murdered.  The same goes for many things like stealing.

This leads us to another concept: anarchy and governance.  Although the popular wisdom is that the former is defined purely within the bounds of freedom while the latter is not, without something in place to enforce consequences of behavior that infringes upon the liberties of another, long term anarchy inevitably turns to chaos and oppression by local tyrants.  We need look no further than Somalia for an example of this.

The trick is to find a balance between too much anarchy and too much authority.  Either one limits freedoms, but most governments tend to drift towards authoritarianism over time, which is why it is important to enshrine freedoms in a document, so there can be no question about interpretation (more on this later).  Jean-Jacques Rousseau touched on this in both Discourse on Inequality and The Social Contract.

Enshrining Freedom

The United States of America has a long tradition of valuing liberty.  Our founding fathers were after all, anti-authoritarian, freedom loving radicals.  In the Declaration of Independence from a tyrannical power, freedom was enshrined as a principle that was earlier formulated by John Locke and other progressive philosophers, “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.”

The Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights are important baselines meant to protect individual liberty, but they are not the end of the story in terms of trying to enshrine freedom for members of our species.  Other nations have similar traditions to protect the liberty of their people.  The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a good expansion upon this theme, and a good document guaranteeing liberty around the world, regardless of culture or nationality.

Vortex of Authoritarianism

As previously mentioned, there is an inexorable and almost inevitable drift towards authoritarianism within every society over time.  This is why Thomas Jefferson was quoted with the highly controversial statement, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” This is of course quite revolutionary of a concept, but one we must always hold close.

How does this happen?  Why do societies gravitate towards giving up their freedoms?   Although there are many reasons why this happens, one is simply due to laws.  There are local, regional, national, and international laws that accumulate over time.  In the US, there are literally millions of laws on the books, so many that it has become impossible even for experts to know and understand them all for one particular area.  One way to help slow the fall of freedom is to have sweeping reforms, throwing out all of the laws in the land, and starting fresh.  The problem with this is of course those in most positions of power and influence will take the opportunity to just replace them that solidifies their control.  If there are a special set of circumstance where true reformers are somehow in place, they must be vigilant to establish a good rule set that maximizes freedom for the individual while not hampering the liberties of others when they sweep away the cumbersome mess.

I do not believe that the slide towards authority can be stopped, only delayed with moments of brilliance that temporarily roll back the clock.  Nations are like organisms, they have a life span, and one of the leading causes of death is too great of centralized authority that severely limits the freedoms of the individual.

America’s Decline

America is not immune from this natural cycle.  There are many powerful interests that seek to keep the people divided in order to consolidate their position and solidify more control.  The 1960s were a perfect example of their deviousness.  Despite a huge generation (called Baby Boomers) rising up to take on the system and fight for freedom, justice, and peace, the establishment managed to paint them as dangerous radicals, communist pawns, irrational druggies, and disrespectful thugs.  This was the closest the US has ever come to an actual revolution this century, but the corporations and government held on just long enough for the momentum to fade.

The ‘counter-revolution’ followed, bringing us Reagan and nearly 30 years where a conservative corporatist paradigm reigned. More freedoms were curtailed under the ‘get tough on crime’ and drug war laws.

According to Human Rights Watch “For much of the 20th century, the US incarceration rate remained fairly stable. It began to climb sharply in the late 1970s, as a result of policy changes like mandatory minimum sentencing and the widespread abolition of parole. In the 1980s and 1990s, the “war on drugs” and “three strikes” laws fueled further growth. More people were going to prison, and staying there for longer periods of time. By 2004, the incarcerated population was six times what it had been in 1972.”

The for-profit prison industry boomed, and the incarceration rate climbed to the highest in the world, surpassing China, Russia, South Africa, Iran, North Korea, and every other country that is typically demonized in the American media as a brutal dictatorship that oppresses their people.  In fact one out of every thirty two Americans is currently either behind bars or on probation.  1 in 32!

The ACLU has determined that 2/3rds of Americans live in border zones where liberties are routinely curtailed as a matter of standard practice.  This is exemplified by such things as Sheriff Joseph M. Arpaio (Maricopa County, Arizona) and his Gestapo-like tactics.  Add to this unconstitutional checkpoints, vast amounts of discretionary powers in law enforcement, and domestic espionage, and America really starts to look like a police state.

A Chance for Reform

Despite this slide towards a totalitarian government which bends the rules to consolidate and enhance its own position, it is a major goal of progressives to expand the freedoms enjoyed by all Americans during our time in power.  This is never easy, but we have a fresh group of faces in key positions that are ready and willing to press for reforms, backed up by a grassroots network of energized support.

Once again, the man behind the curtain, which is always the wealthiest, most privileged in any nation, but in modern America translates into big, multi-national corporations, are diligently working behind the scenes to divide the nation, and prevent changes that could threaten their power base.

Enter the Tea Parties.

In what can only be described as a genius plan, the corporate interests are using fronts like FreedomWorks and their propaganda division at Fox News to whip up popular resentment and sheer terror of perceived loss of freedoms under the new reformer, President Barack Obama.  They are framing the debate in such a way that the people showing up are fearing losing the very things the movement for change is actually trying to provide, but they are currently focusing purely on the economic realm.

One of the arguments they use are as follows.  The stimulus package during this Great Recession is only going to make things worse.  They have undergone a terrific revisionist campaign trying to say that the New Deal under FDR during the Great Depression prolonged the depression, ignoring the massive works projects that literally saved millions from starvation and disease, as well as getting the wheels of the economy moving again.  They further ignore the fact that WWII was nothing but a massive stimulus project, yet claim this was what *really* saved the economy.

Further, this argument is extremely hypocritical because there was absolutely no concern by these people during the entire time from 1981 onwards when deficits were deliberately created to fund tax cuts and try and force social programs cuts under the policy known as starve the beast.  There wasn’t a peep about the doubling of the national debt under George W. Bush.  In fact, it wasn’t until it became clear that Obama was going to win the next election that a small band of conservatives started to express reservations about the TARP plan, many of these people had previously supported it when the polls were tight.

There are other economic rationales given as well, with strong undertones suggesting that any meaningful reforms will lead to a loss of economic freedom, and here lies the irony of the situation.

Economic Freedom

Economic freedom is a freedom, but if they really believed that, they would support opportunity for the vast majority of Americans to have a fair shake in life.  In a perfect world each of us would start of completely equal, and rise or fall based on our own merits, intelligence, preparation, and hard work.  As it stands, there is very little social mobility in this country.  If you are born rich, odds are good you will die rich, never having experienced what it’s like to be in dire poverty.  If you are born poor, odds are very good that’s exactly how you’ll die.

Normally this situation is just accepted by people, or in our economic model people are made to feel that it is directly their fault, to ignore the tilted system behind it that the rich and powerful use to prohibit most from truly prospering.  Of course there are exceptions, for people with heavy amounts of greed who are willing to step on the backs of others to get ahead, there is plenty of opportunity.  For those willing to hold and crack the whips for upper management, they just might one day hold that whip that was used on them.

The past 30 years have been very good to the richest of the rich.  In 1970, a CEO made an average of 28 times what the average worker made at his company, a statistic similar to other countries today.  Now, that number has swelled to over 465x what the average worker makes.

Executives receive 1/3^rd of ALL the pay in the nation now, and top 1% reaped 2/3rs of the income gains during the last economic expansion.  Meanwhile, class warfare has been waged on the poor, who have had their situations decline year after year.  Where is the economic freedom for the poor?  This is why Frank Rich writing for the Wall Street Journal recently wrote that the ‘Left needs to reclaim ‘freedom”.

FDR’s 4 Freedoms

The last time our country was in this bad of economic shape, Franklin Delano Roosevelt redefined the debate with the premise of his 4 Freedoms.  They include:

1. Freedom of speech and expression

2. Freedom of religion

3. Freedom from want

4. Freedom from fear

This is the key here, and goes back to the social contract between people and their government.  When predatory capitalism has failed, when corporations are fleecing the public, when the rich are exploiting the poor to buy more yachts while people are in serious dire straights financially, *something* must be done to restore the economic freedom to those on the brink of an abyss.

So we must change the way we do things as a country.  We must restore targeted regulations on corporations that require it.  We must reform health care and get labor rights brought back.  We must enforce the freedom from want and fear that is so important in alleviating so many other interconnected situations.   These economic freedoms are going to happen, and this is something we cannot compromise on.  All freedom invariably leads to social responsibility.

An Unlikely Alliance

This brings us back to the Tea Parties.  Outside of the hypocrites using libertarianism as a front to attack Obama and derail the progressive movement for change and reform in this country, there are some people there who are genuine in their beliefs.  They are the original founders of the Ron Paul “money bomb’ tea party in 2007.   These libertarians share many of the concerns progressives have about intrusive government.

Unfortunately, they are a tiny minority of the modern Tea Party movement, as one John Birch Society conservative and Tea Party enthusiast I recently talked to called them, “Libertarian Party freaks.”  Most of these libertarians are so distracted by Fox ‘News’ propaganda that they are actively working against us trying to institute reforms.  Their current primary focus is this question: “How can the left be for bigger, more intrusive government and for freedom at the same time?”

That’s a valid question, and as already noted, governments tend to descend into authoritarian regimes over time.  However, I also previously noted that it is the kind of government program involved.  When corporations are free to exploit and take away the opportunity of people at will, causing a lack of FDR’s 4 freedoms, then that economic anarchy must be countered by something.  It’s not that *anything* in the government is bad, it’s anything that the government does to take away freedom is bad.

For instance, in the fight for health care reform, progressives believe that it is a human right to have quality, affordable health care.  This will take a strong public option to compete with the insurance corporations who have maximized profit by many unscrupulous  means.  In the upcoming Employee Free Choice Act, we are trying give workers the freedom to collectively bargain free of corporate intimidation tactics.  In immigration reform, we oppose the human rights violations used by the authorities against other people just because they are undocumented and seeking better economic opportunities in life.  In campaign finance reform, we seek to remove the corruptive influence that big corporate money has on elections and lobbying.  These will all likely be points of contention with libertarians, who seem to think that for some reason if the big, bad government would just butt out, suddenly our new corporate masters would treat everyone good and life would be idyllic.

This doesn’t mean that freedom loving progressives and libertarians cannot make a strategic alliance and work together on other issues of freedom.

• getting the government out of the drug war and legalizing marijuana
• preventing government bans of abortion
• restoring Habeas Corpus
• removing the warrantless wiretapping program
• leaving Iraq
• preventing ban on gay marriage
• reducing absurd military spending
• restoring constitutional protections in border zones
• ending torture and other human rights violations, including rendition
• stopping domestic espionage

Conclusion

Although Democrats have large majorities in the House and Senate, many of these people are actually conservatives (Blue Dogs) who are just as likely as the Republicans of working with corporate interests to undermine the freedom of the American people even further.  The ‘democratic wing of the Democratic Party’ as the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN) called it, is not the majority by any means in our government, but backed up by an energized movement for change and reform, we have a real chance to turn back the clock on authoritarianism.

“Liberals believe in freedom of speech to protect us from political oppression. Liberals believe in sound regulations to protect us from economic oppression. Liberals believe in just laws to protect us from social oppression. And Liberals believe in quality education to protect us from the oppression of ignorance.”

Quote from a recent article on the internet titled Liberal values are American values,