Who's Afraid of Liberty?: The American Left and Its Fear of Talking About Freedom

It seems that the Democratic Party and the American left in general has a problem with talking about "liberty" and "freedom." Sometimes words like "choice" and "rights" are applied euphemistically to this end, but framing issues from the perspective of individuals struggling for self-determination in their lives has been a theme entirely given over to the right for quite a while now. Issues from reproductive rights to LGBT issues to immigration reform are framed almost solely in terms of "justice" or "equality" when they should all be at least partially framed in terms of "freedom." Meanwhile, those who are unafraid to talk about "liberty" (such as libertarians and a number of conservatives) win the hearts and minds of Americans who value personal freedom, even if the right wing conception of liberty is superficial at best. In order to win over those voters who value the rights of individuals to live their lives as they see fit, the left is going to have to start talking about liberty once again.

   The reasons for the left's liberty deficit seems to be two fold. First of all, the concept of personal freedom is often used as a way for those with power and money to feel little or no guilt about riding roughshod over those without it. Business owners may feel that they are at liberty to treat their employees however they choose and that those employees are then at liberty to work elsewhere if they do not like it. Parents may feel that they are at liberty to raise their children as they see fit even if said children are denied opportunities to grow and learn that would allow them to live normal lives and to benefit as individuals. Someone may feel that he or she has the liberty to cease paying taxes even though by doing so, they would be denying all members of their society the ability to use services that are vital to their well-being. And so on and so forth. The reason that people on the left rightly find these hypothetical claims so unconvincing is that the liberty given up by the business owner, parent, and taxpayer in these scenarios is much less than the liberty gained by the worker, child, and ideally the consumer of government services. A good non-hypothetical example of this is the American with Disabilities Act. While this forces individual business owners to give up a little bit of liberty by requiring them to make their places of business more accessible for the handicapped, the liberty that disabled individuals acquire by being able to travel more freely in a world accessible to them outweighs any collective inconveniences to America's business owners. Sure, all of these issues are issues of "equality" and "justice" but they are also issues about "liberty," just a more complicated sort of liberty than that promoted by those on the right.

   LGBT rights seems to me to be a particularly strange issue to frame in terms of "justice" and "equality" as opposed to "liberty," seeing as for the most part the demands of LGBT people infringe very little, if any, on the rights of others. Perhaps this is just part of a pattern on the left of framing issues in terms of the former and not the latter and it is being repeated even in those cases where it make comparably little sense. Instead of riling up Americans against the savage injustice of putting individual rights to a popular vote and putting the government in charge of who can and cannot make what commitments to one another, the left has meekly spewed mealy mouthed platitudes about "equality."

   However, there is more at work in the left's (and especially the Democratic Party's) fear of talking about freedom than just how the term is often inappropriately used by those on the right as an excuse to ignore social justice and personal liberty for some of those most marginalized by society. It also has to do with the establishment left's own role in perpetuating gross violations of individual rights. The war on drugs, while not a wholly left wing enterprise, has been and continues to be at least a partial one. And the American left has never been completely comfortable with the notion of Americans owning firearms for self-defense. Many violations of individual rights and ultimately of people's freedom have their roots on the left. By embracing terms like "liberty" the American left will have to come to terms with its own continuing betrayal of this ideal.

However, in the final estimation of things the American left and the Democratic Party are going to have to learn how to talk about freedom. From the Declaration of Independence to the "Don't Tread on Me" flag to rock and roll to jazz, America's best traditions have had at their heart an appeal to the American love of freedom. Americans are used to framing issues in terms of freedom and will respond to whatever political party or movement is best able to appeal to this basic human and very American desire. As long as American liberals have trouble articulating what freedom means to them they can expect to lose elections and ultimately to lose ground in the court of public opinion.

Militias and the Rise of a New Right Wing Movement

Recently, like most Americans that attempt to follow news of a sociopolitical nature, I have become aware of stories that report on the phenomenon of various right-leaning militia groups forming in the United States. Loosely affiliated with Tea Party and 9/12 Movement ideals, these groups seem to have especially attracted coverage in the wake of the controversial health care reform bill that passed and was signed into law by President Obama just weeks ago. Not unsurprisingly given the polarized state of our nation's politics, the narrative that emerges about these groups depends on what news source you are watching, listening to, or reading.

On MSNBC, the general position tends to be that anyone that has ever so much as looked at a gun is a racist religious fanatic that wants to kill you and your family. Meanwhile, politicians and pundits on the right have rushed to rationalize even the most extreme statements from those in these organizations. It is difficult, if not impossible, to find balanced portrayals of the individuals involved in these movements in the media as such individuals are nearly always portrayed as either dangerous psychopaths or as uncomplicated defenders of the American way - with little room for nuance on either side. I believe that the situation is more complicated than that and that we owe it to ourselves as Americans, regardless of our political beliefs, to examine the motivation for those who have decided to align themselves with the milita cause.

First of all, it is important to note that both left-wing and right-wing forces in this country have an occasional history of violence. On the left, the terrorist activities of the Weather Underground in the 1960s provide an example. On the right, terrorist acts like the recent murder of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller by Scott Roeder and the Oklahoma City bombing carried out by Timothy McVeigh in 1995 are prominent cases in point when it comes to extremists that turn violent. For reasons such as this, it is important that when organizations or persons of any political stripe begin espousing violent rhetoric, we as citizens are right to look on them with, at the very least, some measure of concern. History has shown that these groups and individuals can at times prove to be a legitimate threat to our personal and collective rights to life, liberty, and property. However, the question then becomes "When should concern turn into government action?" At what point should surveillance and circumscription of civil liberties be the prescription for such persons and groups as opposed to a last resort option lingering on the back of our nation's collective mind?

At the outset of any discussion of this issue it is important to understand that for many individuals, there has been a worrying erosion of Second Amendment rights going on in this nation for quite some time. Most of these individuals are not particularly prone to violence but they do share some not uncommon concerns about a fundamental Constitutional right being watered down to the point of irrelevance. (Perhaps the best analogy I can think of from a left-wing perspective is the way that despite Roe v. Wade guaranteeing abortion rights, these rights have been gradually stripped away by lawmakers so that they are in some ways toothless.) For some, they situate this trend in the broader context of increased government intrusion into our society. Many of these individuals are fiscal conservatives who take a libertarian view of government and are concerned about the right to self-defense so that they may be able to protect themselves from both government injustice as well as from other people who may mean them harm. In fact, I have even heard some with this point of view draw parallels between women's reproductive rights, civil rights for LGBT people and racial minorities, and the right to bear arms as a series of important individual rights that all must be in place for us to live in a free society. Granted, this is not the most common rhetoric among gun rights advocates but nor is it unheard of.

Nonetheless, what for some remains a legitimate commitment to the right to self-defense is for others an excuse to involve themselves in what is not unlikely to turn into violent extremism. For individuals already predisposed to violence or mental illness, the militia movement may provide them with a ready made set of grievances against the government and the training necessary to enact violent fantasies against their fellow human beings. The Southern Poverty Law Center currently tracks militia organizations and reports that within the last two years fifty new militia groups have formed across the nation. Which of these entities provides an acceptable outlet for individuals to learn to defend themselves and which of these entities contains the seeds for violence against others remains to be seen. It is obvious that some of the acts of vandalism and threats against the lives of specific lawmakers that occurred in the wake of the healthcare bill's passage should be investigated and taken seriously. Those responsible for these acts should be held accountable by the criminal justice system.

In the way of policy prescription, I would close this piece by saying that it is still important to remember that holding controversial and even extreme political, social, and/or religious views is not and should not be a crime. Owning a weapon and getting together with others to learn to use that weapon (even amidst a backdrop of heated political rhetoric) is not and should not be a crime either. It is probably for the best that groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, a non-governmental organization, tracks and keeps an eye on these groups lest some of them begin to present a threat to others. Nonetheless, I feel strongly that when it comes to any radical organizations - including but not limited to very conservative Muslim groups, extreme anti-abortion protesters, and some of the more fiery of the militia groups - it is vital for all of our civil liberties that officials err on the side of protection of the rights of persons with controversial positions. Leave it to NGOs like the SPLC to monitor these groups, to citizens to be vigilant and honest with themselves about what they're seeing when these groups begin to cross the line into incitements to violence, and to our local, state, and federal governments to step in promptly as soon as (but not a moment before) it becomes clear that these groups pose a threat to the life, liberty, and property of persons or towards government institutions. In a free society the state must be neutral towards the political positions of private groups and persons or else we begin to stop living in a society in which any of us can count on the protection of our rights on a day to day basis.