If, like me and the Gipper, you lean libertarian and believe the basic watchword for any political movement should be “freedom” (or “liberty”), you naturally cringe when you hear of an organization turning to the state to mandate “equality.” While the ideal of equality is perhaps noble in concept, the historical record of the past century has shown that when the state seeks to promote equality, it does so at the expense of liberty (and oftentimes prosperity as well).
Conservative and libertarian political philosophers have long recognized the tension between the two ideals. Laws to promote equality often nibble at our liberty.
This thought comes to mind every time I receive an e-mail from “Equality California” (EqCA) touting their legislative achievements. Given how successful this Democratic group has been at lobbying the Golden State’s Democratic legislature over the years, you’d think that they would no longer need to push bills in Sacramento. By now, that is, they should have passed enough laws to advance gay equality.
But, the laws keep coming. EqCA mentioned seven in an e-mail earlier this month, four which the Governor signed, three which he vetoed.
Now, to be sure, some laws do indeed advance liberty (such as a bill downgrading “possession of an ounce or less” of marijuana “from a misdemeanor to an infraction.”)
Three days after receiving that electronic missive from EqCA, I received one from Log Cabin, heralding “pro-equality Republicans.” Four days later, they touted a candidate as advocated for equality while running on a “freedom-based platform”. Were they even aware of the contradictions between that supposed advocacy and his platform?
If Log Cabin wishes to be a genuinely Republican organization, it, like the GOP nationally, must understand what freedom means. It would be nice if, instead of aping the watchword of the gay left, Log Cabin leaders could craft a real gay conservative agenda, one where the guiding principle is the same one which inspired the founders of our nation — and our party: freedom or liberty.
NB: Tweaked the title to make it more concise.
I hate to break in and bore your readers with stories about John Winthrop, but you asked for my thoughts on this equality rub…..
Two documents are probably the most important frameworks through which to understand US politics: Winthrop’s “Model of Christian Charity,” delivered as a sermon in 1630 and published in 1838, and the Declaration of Independence. The two documents exist in tension — very very deep tension — with each other.
Winthrop thought inequality was ordained by God and showed his wondrous ability to organize reality for us. He also thought differences in fortune occasioned acts of kindness and gratitude, and ultimately caused people to need each other. Winthrop believed love would unite the city on a hill (he coined that phrase by culling a translation of Matthew 5). Society had to be cemented by passion, and passion was fueled by difference which led people to feel attracted to each other based on mutual need (the rich need laborers, the poor need benefactors, what a turn-on!) This is why my students get confused — the Puritans believed in passionate relations, which is why Ann Bradstreet can write poems about jumping her husband’s bones.
Now, TJefferson was different. To him we owe the idea of people being created equal — the exact opposite of Winthrop. Jefferson was empirical in taste, and thought language was, as he wrote in Notes on the State of Virginia, “an instrument in the attainment of science.” Jefferson didn’t think society needed to be bound by love, but rather, by reason and convention (a decent respect to the opnions of mankind). Luckily Mr. Jefferson had a lifelong debate with John Adams who was the country’s first conservative president and revived Winthrop’s ideas. Notice how John and Abigail Adams wrote romantic letters to each other, which can bring me to tears, whereas Jefferson, a man who believed in science over passion, never went to those depths.
So this matters why? Well, I actually think the tension is not between liberty and equality. That was a misrepresentation that has gotten a boost from Marc Levin. It’s a long tradition in philosophy, but I think it’s not the real tension. The tension is between love and science.
People who want equality think it’s possible to measure happiness and dole it out equally. They also don’t imagine human beings needing each other, but rather, tolerating each other as long as some set of uptight conventions keep prejudices in check. It’s a bleak, materialist vision of liberty, worsened later by Auguste Comte and the positivists. Blame Jefferson.
People who believe in inequality understand that inequality is GOOD. I have more of X and you have more of Y; you might envy me and strive to compete, which makes us both work harder, or you might befriend me so you can swap my X for your Y and then we start to feel a warm and tingling feeling together and next thing you know, we have a city on a hill. This way, there don’t need to be conventions. We all just get along naturally. But Adams believed for this to work, we must be moral people or a state will eventually have to enter to regulate us again.
That’s what’s going on — love versus science. I side with love, God, the Puritans, Adams, inequality, the city on a hill. Screw “when in the course of human events it becomes necessary” blah blah blah. It worked for the moment but it doesn’t make a country. Most of that document is a long Ciceronian philippic against George anyway and people hardly remember it.
Coco, ergh, hate having to kind of hijack my own thread 🙂
Please, don’t dismiss Mr. Jefferson’s passion too lightly. Devastated by the death of his wife Martha when he was just 39, he didn’t speak to anyone for 6 week, was described as “dead to the world.”
Her death may have made him a less passionate man.
Now, back to liberty v. equality.
“Now, to be sure, some laws do indeed advance liberty (such as a bill downgrading ‘possession of an ounce or less” of marijuana “from a misdemeanor to an infraction.’)”
I demur sir. Why do “libertarians” think that softer laws on drugs advance liberty? Holland isn’t a more liberal place since it went soft on drugs, and it is now rethinking a number of her policies in light of crime waves. Brain studies reveal that users become more of a burden to the state and therefore the taxpayer, not less of a burden. The reality is that some liberties hurt other liberties, as even Friedman recognized.
Ben,
I beleive that the conflict isn’t so much ‘advancing liberty’ as ‘advancing liberty in a progressive state.’ For a ‘pure’ Libertarian, the freedom to engage in self destructive behaviour would be moderated by a lack of a (goverment redistribution) social structure to support the person dealing with the consequences of that behaviour. So, to continue to use Holland as the example, if there was no government redistribution of capital (socialized medicine, welfare payments etc.) the person in question would only be a burden to himself, or anyone who chose to help him.
Ideally the stoner would a) hit bottom and realize the consequences of his actions before he died or b) would achieve a paracitic relationship with people who were willingly enabling him.
Per Coco, Winthrop argues from one first principle–that all men are created inequal–and Jefferson argues from an opposite–that all men are created equal. As a side note, a quibble: the idea that all men are created equal actually originated with some older dead guys–Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, et al. with their natural man. [/side note] For American purposes, the equality of man was codified in the blah, blah, blah part with which Coco dismisses our Declaration: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” and further “that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
In fact, though, inequality does exist, the inequality of empirical circumstance. Further, the tension between love and science also is a chimera born of a false dichotomy: that there must, and can, be only one or the other. In fact, both love and science are necessary to resolve a tension that truly exists: that between those who have more equality and those who have less. Science works to find ways generally to resolve the inequality (the invention of necessity), and love works to slash the Gordion knot represented by those areas inaccessible (at least at the moment) to science.
Inequality itself is a GOOD only in that it drives effort to resolve the inequality. It is inherently, though, a NOTGOOD, else there would be no need to drive resolutions to it. “People who want equality….” But this depends on what equality is wanted–equality of outcomes, which seems to be the liberal goal, or equality of opportunities, which seems to be the conservative goal. Here, in fact, lies the foundational tension: outcome vs opportunity, which is the greater importance?
One more side note, speaking ex cathedra from my navel with my 35-year-old MS in psychology, I suggest Jefferson was not less passionate as a result of his wife’s death. Rather, it may be that he was even more passionate, but that having been burned so badly once for having allowed himself to experience passion, he simply became very effective at suppressing further such experiences. From the outside looking in, we can’t tell the difference, but that difference may very well have been in play internally.
Eric Hines
Ideally the stoner would a) hit bottom and realize the consequences of his actions before he died or b) would achieve a paracitic relationship with people who were willingly enabling him.
There exists a c) ,though, that argues against a libertarian lack of regulation/ban on drugs: would be an active burden on society through criminal behavior aimed at satisfying an addiction that would be “required” as mere permissiveness toward the drugs produced inadequate amounts and/or not sufficiently fast enough. This is a burden that grows with the addictive power of the drug in question, but to my poor pea brain, the cost of constantly quibbling over where to draw that line mitigates in favor of drawing the line at zero.
Eric Hines
Well I did say ‘ideally’ Eric. I guess a libertarian ideal c) would be he commits a crime and gets capped trying to deprive a person of their wallet.
Not to blame Lord Kelvin for things he never thought, but cold, analytical science has created enormous “turmoil” in the world when practiced by the amoral or immoral person.
Kelvin said;
That is sufficient for data collectors to go berserk over “empty calories” and “eugenics” and vitamin “supplements” and “population control” and “redistribution” and “free” health care and “hope and change” and “controlling the economy” and whatever else statisticians can dream up.
Equality which morphs into egalitarianism is stuff for the Mad Hatter and belongs down the rabbit hole of parallel insanity.
Give three people exactly the same “stuff” in three identical houses next to one another (equality of condition) and see how long it takes them to differentiate themselves from each other. They will not, I assure you, cleave to the status quo of egalitarianism. One only needs to visit a row of prison cells to test my statement.
“Full equality” in Munchkinland or Utopia or even Heaven is buried in the stars and a product of men’s minds. Like the concept of “privacy” you can not ask a room of twenty students to describe “full equality” on paper and get fully equal answers.
“Full equality” is code for Communism; the Democrats want an all-controlling centralized government. Equality changes depending on what the subject is which goes back to moral relativism, another favorite trope for the Socialists.
“Full equality” is code for Communism
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They are using the line, “the pursuit of happiness”, to redefine what both ‘equality’ and ‘happiness’ is. They believe that a single, centrally planned view of human existence, can accommodate the varied personal values of 300,000,000 different people.
Government wants to be the primary provider of ‘happiness’ in the United States!
My greatest concern with the legalization of drugs comes from the government structures that are already in place. Obama Care makes me responsible for the health of people who use crack cocaine, and crystal meth.
As long as everyone deals with their own consequences, i would have no problem with legalizing both of those things. ‘Freedom’ also includes the freedom to kill yourself via; bacon eating, cigarette smoking, sky-diving, trans-fats slurping, lion taming, sword swallowing, and motorcycle jumping.
Dammit! Let’s show some personal responsibility here! If you don’t want bad things to happen to you, then don’t do stupid things!
As far as i’m concerned, if we can develop a test to determine when someone is ‘driving while intoxicated with THC’, we could legalize the personal use of marijuana WITHOUT legalizing the “sale or barter of” marijuana. It is the trafficking of marijuana that cause public violence, not the personal use of.
AND UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES DO I SUPPORT ANY TAXATION OF MARIJUANA. This is a socialist trap!
I shouldn’t have to pay tribute to anyone to express my freedom.
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On the other extreme, ‘full freedom’ is anarchy, and i personally don’t know anyone who endorses total anarchy.
What we need is just enough structure to make things work. A little over 200 years ago, government became a mutual defense pact, and employed just enough people to organize the private citizens of the nation. Today, there are no private citizens. WE ARE ALL PUBLIC PROPERTY!
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Livewire, you did, indeed, say “ideally.” The problem, though, is that we live in the real world. And in the real world, your c) at best includes the cost of the innocent victim needing to cap his addict assailant–or even just to defend himself successfully short of lethality. This is a cost the victim ought not have to bear. The more likely case, though, is that c) results in the innocent victim being capped by the addict assailant. This is a cost the victim’s survivors ought not have to bear.
Presently, drawing the line at zero hasn’t been very effective, but that seems to me more a failure of enforcement than of the location of the line.
Eric Hines
Give three people exactly the same “stuff” in three identical houses next to one another (equality of condition) and see how long it takes them to differentiate themselves from each other.
One needs only cruise through one or another Levittown to see the truth of this. Equal outcomes results only in nearly everyone living in equal squalor and poverty, with a very few having all the nation’s (greatly diminished) wealth concentrated in their hands.
Eric Hines
If “full equality” (whatever that means) were achieved, Joe Solomonese and all the other parasites would have to quit their cushy, high-profile jobs and try to find work in the real world. This is what happens when activism becomes institutionalized. And to keep themselves going, they continually dumb down the level of what constitutes “oppression.” Fifty years ago, oppression was being denied the right to vote and being forced to use separate water fountains. Now, it’s oppression if you see a Confederate flag and it bothers you.
V, delighted you used an expression I have used related to the endless repetition of the mantra “full equality” — “whatever that means.” I mean, do Joe Solmonese et al. have a notion what that expression means?
In a totally “equal” society;
– Lotto jackpots would be distributed among all people.
– Everyone would leave the poker table with the exact amount of money they had when they sat down.
– Marathon runners would all be given a ribbon that says “Participant”.
– Illiterate school children would get the same grade as those reading well ahead of their age group. (Everyone gets a ‘C’)
– Football would be handicapped to produce a ‘break even score’.
– The NBA would be forced to accept short, uncoordinated, white guys.
– Everyone would have their own ‘talk-show’, and could gripe against “those other people”, as long as they don’t identify anyone by name.
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It depends on how one defines full equality. The left tends to define it as equality of results, while the right defines it as equality of opportunity.
Thomas Sowell’s A Conflict of Visions is an excellent book on the subject.
Dan, I wasn’t even consciously emulating you. Niall, if equality of outcome is what the left wants, it means we’re all mediocrities at best. Everyone is a C-student. Everyone drives a Honda Accord.
But in practice, it’s worse, because how equality of outcome works in the world is everybody lives in a slum, lines up for rationed food, and takes public transportation if there is any. Cuba, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Venezuela are testaments to the goal of “full equality” of outcome.
Leftists try to have it both ways, by talking about “diversity”. But I just happened to see this today… a young-ish Margaret Thatcher, on inequality: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK3eP9rh4So
Key point, so well said:
V, I didn’t say you were, just that I have often used that very expression “whatever that means” when considering the left-wing gay mantra of “full equality.”
(continued) I find it interesting that Thatcher’s pitch for conservatism, like mine for capitalism, rests above all on the protection of individual rights to life, liberty and property, i.e. on individual freedom under the rule of law. But here she is later, defending the economic benefits of her tenure as Prime Minister:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okHGCz6xxiw
Her policies helped the poor, by raising their absolute living standards. She points out that her crypto-socialist opponent, who objected to her policies on the grounds that the rich had done even better (thus widening inequality), would clearly “rather [that] the poor were poorer, provided the rich were less rich.”
She is right. People who truly care about the poor, care about raising the absolute living standards of poor people in real life – and laissez-faire capitalism does that. Left-liberalism does not; it only grinds everybody (except bureaucrats) down to the same awful level of poverty.
If you are going to let people earn and create wealth, then you are going to end up raising the absolute living standards of virtually everyone in the society – and, as a piece inseparable and inevitable, the people who are best at it are going to be richer than others. But I digress.