This may be old news by now, but the President’s inaugural address was essentially a betrayal of the concept of freedom. The speech re-confirmed Ayn Rand’s analysis of conservatives–that they are bankrupt and fated to lose, because they base their position on the appeal to faith, tradition, and man’s depravity. Each of these appeals was on view in the speech. But the new betrayal was Bush’s acceptance of the leftist concept of the very thing the speech was all about: freedom.
“In America’s ideal of freedom, citizens find the dignity and security of economic independence, instead of laboring on the edge of subsistence.”
That by itself is sloppy, but still interpretable as saying: freedom brings prosperity. But note that the phrase “economic independence” implies that those lacking a certain level of wealth are not independent–does this mean employment is dependence?. At any rate, “freedom brings prosperity” is not the intended meaning, because the next sentence is:
“This is the broader definition of liberty that motivated the Homestead Act, the Social Security Act and the G.I. Bill of Rights.”
The “broader definition” is the statist concept of FDR’s “four freedoms”–the idea of equating poverty, fear, disease, etc. with slavery. This lethal equivocation between being forced and not being given things is centuries old (“A hungry man is not free,” and “The law, in the majesty of its equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor from sleeping under bridges”).
Before proceeding, let’s refresh ourselves by reading some clear, clean logic:
“Freedom, in a political context, means freedom from government coercion. It does not mean freedom from the landlord, or freedom from the employer, or freedom from the laws of nature which do not provide men with automatic prosperity. It means freedom from the coercive power of the state–and nothing else.”
Can Bush’s speechwriter, Michael Gerson, be ignorant of this idea? Is it possible that he hasn’t read any Ayn Rand? The above is from “Conservatism: an Obituary,” but the same identification of freedom as the absence of physical force is in “Man’s Rights,” “The Nature of Government,” and is well known in the so-called libertarian movement with which Gerson must be familiar. I think Gerson is aware of the correct definition of freedom, but is consciously disavowing it. That would be consistent with Gerson’s, Bush’s, and all conservatives’ central dogma: altruism.
According to altruism, when the needy are not being provided with values, that is coercion–because the needy are the true owners of those values.
This is why, amazingly, the Social Security Act, is put into the list of things that advanced liberty. Social Security is nothing but granting the unearned. But for altruism, that’s what morality is all about. Justice, for altruists, means the concept of “deserve” is the opposite of the concept “earn.” If you earn a value, you don’t deserve to keep it; if you didn’t earn a value, you deserve to have it.
Didn’t someone once put that in a memorable phrase? Oh yes, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”
That is what the Bush inaugural address is trying to put over as “the American ideal of freedom,” as a “broader definition of liberty”: the liberty to loot.
Here are some other anti-gems from the address, which are on the same premise:
“By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear and make our society more prosperous and just and equal.”
Any benevolent construal of that language is blasted by the last word: “equal.” Egalitarianism is here either being advocated or appeased. Take your choice as to which is worse.
“In America’s ideal of freedom, the exercise of rights is ennobled by service and mercy and a heart for the weak.”
The sloppy language is deliberate. He doesn’t quite say that the exercise of rights is conditional upon altruistic service, but he suggests it by the slippery term “ennobled.” In actual fact, “rights” and “service” are antonyms. It’s one or the other. Either we have rights, or we exist to serve the weak. Altruism and rights are incompatible.
Then comes this:
“Liberty for all does not mean independence from one another.”
But that is exactly what liberty does mean. Rights, Ayn Rand explained, are “sanctions of independent action.” Rights are our protection against service, dependence, submission, slavery.
It’s hard to pick a low point here, but perhaps the following is it:
“Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self. That edifice of character is built in families, supported by communities with standards and sustained in our national life by the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, the words of the Koran and the varied faiths of our people.”
I have written on the anti-Americanism of “the truths of Sinai,” (the Ten Commandments), but how on God’s green earth could one cite as the basis of self-government and freedom the Sermon on the Mount or the words of the Koran?! Just what words would those be?
Incidentally, I can’t help wondering about how long an internal battle was fought over whether the Koran should be included with the “truths” or just, as it came out, the “words.” The “reasoning” must have gone like this: “Since Christianity [which sect?] is the one true religion, we can’t have the Koran included as a “truth,” but on the other hand we can’t state that openly, so let’s slide over it and hope no one notices.”
But to cite the Koran when we are at war with Islamofascism is obscene.
There are a few isolated bits in the speech that sound good–out of context. But given the President’s capitulation to the leftist concept of “freedom” and given the vehement altruism, they are meaningless.
I doubt there has been a decent inaugural speech in the last 80 years–think of JFK’s “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask rather what you can do for your country”–but this one is worse because it is not just glib generalities but an ideological manifesto that is being hailed as setting the conservative agenda for the next fifty years.
