On Life and Liberty

There are some pretty bright eyes in our society who would argue that the blind pursuit of liberty, for liberties sake, is not what The Founders had in mind. That in fact, within the realm of liberty there must be walls. The argument then goes that modern liberalism with all of its nonsense is nothing more than an outgrowth of classical liberalism. That the pursuit of “liberty” knows not such cranial differentiations - I could not disagree more. What these astute observers are missing, completely, is economic philosophy - the basis for individual freedom and liberty here on earth in a world of profit and matter. To be free of tyranny is clearly what The Founders meant and to confuse matters with ideas regarding the shortcomings of the Enlightenment philosophers is foolhardy. Some who forward such thought I happen to agree with on many other matters, but it is always amazing the parochial nature of their analysis which seems to totally ignore the virtue of capitalism in the mix.

Consequently, you end up with ideas such as the “right to life” somehow being construed as an absolute upon which The Constitution is based. It is not, and could never be and I believe The Founders understood this implicitly. Clearly, there are many situations in life where my “right to life” conflicts with another’s “right to life.” So, if a right conflicts, can it be a “basic right”? I say no in the context of natural rights theory. This is not to say that I, personally, do not find abortion abhorrent, I do. Patrick Henry would not sign onto early drafts of The Constitution because it did not include what Virginia had - a bill of rights. Last time I checked, the bill of rights contained the 5th Amendment which clearly allows for the elimination of the life of another human being. If on the one hand we have an unbridled, unassailable, right to life premise in The Constitution, how then can we have such an internal conflict within the document itself?

Just as there is no right to an abortion in The Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or the other amendments, nor is there a definition of what constitutes “life” as so eloquently quoted by choosinglife. For if “life” is as sacred as some would argue then you have a conflict with the document itself. The answer to this seemingly impossible puzzle lies in the fact that the Founders spoke in the language of natural rights. The Declaration didn’t list Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness with specific definitions of each, rather it was language specifically intended to motivate to action those to whom the document applied – it is rhetorical. Just as one cannot lay claim to absolute liberty (which is anarchy), nor can one lay claim to an absolute in life – life is inherently short and dangerous and those who believe otherwise are the very same gang of looters who will stop at nothing to make each and every one of us subservient to the “greater good.” And that is the nexus between traditions of tyranny and modern liberalism - classical liberalism is the antithesis of both.

The Framers and Founders knew this far better than any of us because they lived under tyranny! So, where does this leave us? Well, in my view it leaves us with a “democracy if we can keep it.” Point being (and clearly assumed by The Founders) that if we do not come to the American table with morality and decency, then we do not deserve freedom and liberty – it’s as simple as that, but we cannot make the mistake of relying on the founding documents of this country to force either religion or a parochial definition of liberty (to which a right to an abortion is found) onto all of us. The Founders and Framers of this country were indeed men of the Enlightenment and natural rights were their stock in trade. Their vision was correct in my view, and we have strayed far afield from it.

Although The Declaration specifically mentions “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” that phrase is superseded by the words “that among these (self-evident truths),” which makes me wonder what other self-evident truths were foremost in the mind of Jefferson… Could it be a presumption that virtually all people would understand that the freedoms and liberty to which these brilliant men espoused were premised on morality and virtue? I suspect so, and where did they get theirs? That’s easy, primarily from The Bible, but they were careful not to exclude the possibility that one can be moral and virtuous without being an evangelical Christian… Many of them left the European continent specifically to escape religious tyranny – Thomas Paine comes readily to mind.

As a consequence and through my own understanding, I oppose Roe v. Wade on fact that nowhere in The Constitution do you find a right to an abortion – to argue that is pure and utter nonsense in my view - it is purely a matter reserved for either the State or, the individual, as proscribed by the 10th Amendment. For me, it is purely a matter between an individual and his creator it is not a codified standard within our founding documents. Perhaps it would be convenient were that the case, but then having had the Declaration of Independence filled with qualifiers and restrictions would have rendered it a nonstarter from the get go.

Fundamentally, we are equal as “persons”. In fact, I believe “all men are created equal” actually has meaning in the context of natural rights and should have been stated as such because as humans we are clearly individuate – we all bring different levels of ability, physical and mental, to the table so clearly we are not equal as human beings – but as persons, absolutely. So, in the end, it is this definition of person-hood which has to be understood. Neither The Constitution, nor any of the Founding documents provide that for us, nor should they. It is up to us to rise to the occasion of freedom and liberty, to constrain ourselves and to live understanding that, as Ronald Reagan so precisely stated, “Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom, and then lost it, have never known it again.” That is the spirit our Founders relied upon, it is also, not surprisingly, the same sort of thinking that pervades the works of Mises, Bastiat, Locke, Rand, Patterson, et al. There is a common thread; it is one worth finding…

bildanielson @ OnTheBorderLine