Harris, Walz, and a Peculiar Definition of ‘Freedom’ Enjoy your freedom, but only to do as you’re told. It’s for your own good, after all. By Stephen Soukup
https://amgreatness.com/2024/08/24/harris-walz-and-a-peculiar-definition-of-freedom/
To hear the mainstream media tell the story, the just-finished Democratic National Convention was not just about “reintroducing” Kamala Harris to the American people, but about reintroducing the Democratic Party as well. While Americans might have been convinced by nefarious MAGAs and other nogoodniks that the Democrats want to control their lives and tell them what to think, what to drive, what to eat, and how to behave in countless other facets of their lives, the truth is that the Democrats are the party of “freedom.” They—and they alone—stand between the nation and the totalitarianism of the Right.
NBC News, for example, noted in response to Minnesota governor (and vice presidential nominee) Tim Walz’s convention speech that he “capped off the third day of his party’s convention, touting his vision of ‘freedom’ and excoriating the GOP.” The Washington Post, for its part, suggested that the entire theme of the convention was to modify “Democrats’ message from ‘democracy’ to ‘freedom.’” Harris, the paper wrote, “has shifted the focus, speaking far less about democracy and far more about freedom.” The independent journalist Matt Taibbi, himself, at least nominally a man of the left, lamented the Democrats’ “sinister rebrand of ‘Freedom’” and argued that “freedom” was “was right up there with ‘joy’ and ‘unity’ as key themes” of the convention, which he concluded “was not funny.”
The Democrats’ effort to reintroduce themselves as the true and rightful protectors of “freedom” is inarguably as complicated as it is cynical. And as Taibbi suggests a great deal of the logic underlying the Democrats’ pretense is derived from the differences between “negative rights” and “positive rights,” which have been at least a peripheral theme in American politics since Barack Obama’s rise to power more than a decade and a half ago.
Nevertheless, to understand what is going on here and why the Democrats think they can make the case that they are the party of freedom, it is important to recognize that none of this is technically a “rebrand.” None of this is, in any way, new. Indeed, it is foundational to the ideology of the left. For nearly three centuries now, that which we know today as leftism has portrayed itself in precisely the sense that the Democrats portrayed themselves this week: the true and exclusive guarantors of freedom.
There is a catch, of course. There’s always a catch. And as with most of the left’s most dreadful ideas and plans, that catch starts at the very beginning, in the 18th century with the Swiss-French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Rousseau’s Social Contract rests on the idea that the state exists to guarantee the liberty and freedom of the individual. Without the state, there are no rights; there is no freedom. This state-guaranteed freedom, in turn, can only be expressed and understood within the context of something called the “general will” of the people. Rousseau himself put it this way:
As long as several men in assembly regard themselves as a single body, they have only a single will which is concerned with their common preservation and general well-being. In this case, all the springs of the State are vigorous and simple and its rules clear and luminous; there are no embroilments or conflicts of interests; the common good is everywhere clearly apparent, and only good sense is needed to perceive it.
This is nuts, of course, but it has been deemed “profound” by leftist leaders for the last quarter-millennium, from the Jacobins to the Utopian Socialists, from Marx to Lenin, from Ely, Wilson, and the American Progressives to today’s Obama-led Democrats. To them, its profundity is derived from the fact that it empowers small and radical factions to govern as if they possess a mandate from the entire population. As if the “general will” of the people exclusively guides their actions. Additionally—and, perhaps, more to the point—this idea allows them to do whatever they feel is necessary in defense of the general will. If the general will demands the usurpation of the power of the people in the name of “democracy,” for example, then so be it. If it demands the suppression of speech to forestall the spread of “disinformation,” then so be it. If it demands that the state lock you in your house, force vaccines on you, and make you wear a mask, even when you’re alone, then so be that as well. Such is the price of “freedom.” And anyone who objects, as Rousseau himself recommended, should be dealt with fiercely, as a genuine enemy of the people:
There is therefore a purely civil profession of faith of which the Sovereign should fix the articles, not exactly as religious dogmas, but as social sentiments without which a man cannot be a good citizen or a faithful subject. While it can compel no one to believe them, it can banish from the State whoever does not believe them—it can banish him, not for impiety, but as an anti-social being, incapable of truly loving the laws and justice, and of sacrificing, at need, his life to his duty. If anyone, after publicly recognizing these dogmas, behaves as if he does not believe them, let him be punished by death: he has committed the worst of all crimes, that of lying before the law.
To Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, objecting to abortion on demand or questioning the ethics of IVF is freedom-denying, anti-social behavior. Objecting to the American efforts to prolong the war between Russia and Ukraine is freedom-denying, anti-social behavior. Pricing groceries at costs commensurate with producer price increases is freedom-denying, anti-social behavior. At various places and at various times in the last century, being a business owner was anti-social behavior, being an educator was anti-social behavior, having a college degree was anti-social behavior, being Hmong was anti-social behavior, and, of course, being Jewish was anti-social behavior.
To be sure, there are obvious, important, and inarguable differences in the various uses and abuses of the “general will” by those who profess to believe in its virtue. Moreover, just because one (or a few, or even an entire society) professes such a belief, that doesn’t mean that mass murder and genocide will be the inevitable result. Such things are, mercifully, incredibly rare and depend on a great deal more than just a belief in the Rousseauian general will.
Still, that one idea has wreaked a great deal of havoc in the last 250 years and, unfortunately, continues to do so today.
So…enjoy your freedom, but only to do as you’re told. It’s for your own good, after all.
Comments are closed.
