As most readers know, I can't stand to watch television, so I missed all of the past weekend's MSM Obama Extravaganza. I don't know how he does it, but Stephen Green not only sat through it, but managed to put together a video review of the marathon which Glenn Reynolds linked earlier. Which is great for me, because I simply don't have the patience to sit through the news programs as Stephen Green did. (There is not enough vodka in the house, and if there was, my liver would go on the blink before my TV set!)
In one segment, the president (after being asked about racism by David Gregory) referred to the argument that's "gone on for the history of this republic," which he characterized as the following:
How do we balance freedom with our need to look after one another?
Huh? I thought the question was about racism.
What on earth can he mean by the above statement?
First of all, what is our "need" to "look after" "one another"? True, I have plenty of neighbors. But I not only don't need to look after them, I don't especially want to look after them, and I don't think they'd want me to. Nor do I want them or anyone else to look after me. Now, if someone's house caught on fire, I'd certainly do what I could to help, just as if I saw a neighbor's house or car being burglarized, I would try to stop it. I suppose you could say that's looking after one other. But it's voluntary, and based on enlightened self interest. As I said in an earlier post about returning someone's stolen cell phone, I'd like to think that someone would do the same for me.
But what has that to do with freedom? Why would the president (who was a law professor) phrase it as a "balancing test"? Does he think there's tension between "looking after one other" and freedom?
Whatever can he mean?
As I see it, if people really look after each other, there's no way that would entail a loss of freedom. Because freedom is the American birthright, so looking after other Americans would mean preserving freedom, not taking it away. There is no tension there at all. People don't look after each other by taking away each other's freedom.
So what's with the balancing test?
MORE: This post by Kejda Gjermani discusses the dichotomy between economic and personal freedom as a false rhetorical construction:
The dichotomy between economic freedom and personal freedom had always been a faux rhetorical construction. Economic tyranny, even within an unrealistic bubble of personal freedom, can be reduced to a state of limited autonomy within bureaucratic boundaries dictating severe redistribution of the fruits of any successful efforts. Economic tyranny entails an indirect and often passive infringement of personal freedoms. Personal tyranny is directly intrusive and the active intervention required to enforce it cannot go unnoticed or un-resented by the citizenry. Infringements of either personal or economic liberties are all steps toward the same absolutist political direction, whatever their different nuances on the radicalism scale.
Seen this way, the president's claim becomes little more than coded advocacy of economic tyranny.
But I think it's a little disingenuous for him to claim that that this "argument" has "gone on for the history of this republic."
Especially considering that the country was founded by people who fought a war in opposition to economic tyranny, and who settled the argument with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Um, is it inflammatory of me to ask which side the president is on?
posted by Eric on 09.22.09 at 04:54 PM
Comments
"Looking after each other" = forcing you to share your wealth
"Freedom" = Ability to not do whatever Obama desires
The tension is there. You just have to translate it from Obamaese into English.
Dan in San Fran · September 22, 2009 6:16 PM
Sounds like Spengler. But he only said that members of a certain value system would work to support others who were part of the same value system. That lets out ninety percent of the freeloaders in America. Once again, O is a lightweight hand-waving pseudo-intellectual. With no style.
Robert Speirs · September 22, 2009 6:51 PM
From what I understand, the "debate" Obama proposes, "how do we balance freedom with our need to look after one another" is a modern invention and not one seriously contemplated until perhaps 70 or 80 years ago. Prior to then, the genius of our founding fathers was that that government only had responsibility to assuring the integrity of our territorial borders, insuring internal peace and security, and guaranteeing the stability of the political system by eliminating powerful Kings and Lords. If there was ever a historic debate along these lines, it was around figuring out where we need to balance the right to private property verses the need of government to obtain property for its proper operation. And until the Socialists started butting into the conversation in the 1900's, the benefit of the doubt on government seizure of private property (taxes, land) generally fell to private individual ownership.
We in the United States have always been a compassionate people: it's why when there is a disaster anywhere in the world, our military are first on the spot to provide aid, and our private citizens are generally the most generous when it comes to donations of food and supplies. And most of it (aside from military logistical support) is done without government involvement.
So the idea that Obama would phrase this in the way he did shows he's trying to reframe private generosity as government responsibility. When you do that, you both erode private generosity--because we no longer are individually responsible--and you reduce the efficiency of aid, since the politicians-cum-social-planners start playing with the requirements according to a handful of busybodies. It's one reason why Europe, with an economy that dwarves the United States, is no-where to be seen when a natural disaster happens anywhere in the world.
Without economic freedom, there's little personal freedom. If you are not permitted to own property, to dispose of it as you see fit, to accumulate wealth, then what real freedom do you have? Freedom to be a serf, but not much else. A proudly homosexual serf of color speaking truth to power, which it seems is more than enough.
I noted early in the election campaign that whenever Obama said anything to the effect that "we" need to look out for each other, he really means the government needs to coerce and disposses you. Case in point, his illegal immigrant aunt in Boston public housing. There have never been any barriers to him giving her aid and support, yet he never did - it's a responsibility of all of us to support her.
Americans are the most charitable people on the planet, and I suspect we rank very high in community involvement too. Communities, unorganized by Obama, were raising barns and supporting food banks and taking in refugees without government intervention throughout our history. Obama doesn't really believe in any "community" below the federal level, and bottom up organization doesn't exist in his universe.
Steve Skubinna · September 23, 2009 2:09 PM
" I don't know how he does it, but Stephen Green..."
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
"Looking after each other" = forcing you to share your wealth
"Freedom" = Ability to not do whatever Obama desires
The tension is there. You just have to translate it from Obamaese into English.