True liberalism protects the individual freedom of all citizens by Brian Schwartz

A few months ago I was surprised, as I'm sure you will be, at the politically relevant definitions of "liberalism" in the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary: 1. a theory in economic semphasizing individual freedom from restraint and usually based on free competition, the self-regulating market, and the gold standard 2. a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of the human race, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties. This definition reflects what people meant by liberalism before the days of Lyndon Johnson. Due to some sort of conceptual disaster, those who hold these views today are known as "Classical Liberals," "market liberals," or "libertarians." Today's "liberals," whom I like to call modern liberals, resemble advocates of socialism more than those of capitalism. They generally retain the Classical Liberal idea that government should protect an individual's civil liberties, such as freedom of speech and abortion rights, yet they are not consistent; most oppose drug legalization but support compulsory education. Further, modern liberals support programs such as welfare and the income tax that violate people's economic, and thus political, liberties. A person's economic liberties are violated in cases of theft, fraud, and coercion involving his property. (The word "his" in cases like this is not gendered.) Economic liberties - the right to one's property - are an extension of a facet of civil liberties: the right to control one's own body. For example, a rapist and a thief both violate their victim's rights by putting themselves in a relationship which the victim did not choose to enter. In both cases, the relationship involves the victim's property: the victim's body or his material possessions. Property is an extension of self-ownership, and people have a right to control their property just as they do their own bodies and lives. They own their lives as they own their property; both belong to them and nobody else. Civil and economic liberties are very much connected, as people cannot benefit from having one without the other. For example, in a society where only civil liberties are protected, I can think and say anything I want, but the government can legally take the money I earn, thus preventing me from making my internal values a reality in the outside world. The government that modern liberals advocate, for example, takes money earned by taxpayers like myself and gives it to companies, artists, schools, and charitable programs that I do not approve of. I hold my values, but can not utilize some of the means I earned to achieve them. Conversely, in a society where only my economic liberties are protected, I can earn and keep all the money I want, but I cannot legally spend it to support or purchase the books, Internet sites, movies, and medicines I want. I can keep what I earn, but I can only spend it on things that the government approves. Modern liberalism retains the Classical Liberal idea that the purpose of government is to protect "rights," but its notion of rights differs greatly from the liberty rights of Classical Liberalism. Liberty rights are protected by laws forbidding certain actions. An "aggressor" violates the rights of a "victim" by initiating force on him. The aggressor creates and sets the terms of relationships that the victim does not choose. Examples of aggressors are rapists, thieves, and con-artists. Modern liberals advocate "welfare rights," or rights to things. The U.N. Bill of Rights and past platforms of the Democratic Party support welfare rights such as "rights" to food, shelter, and clothing. Governments enforce these "rights" by making some actions mandatory. In a Classical Liberal society, a person cannot violate the rights of another by interfering in their lives. Yet, in a modern liberal society such as ours, people become criminals if they do not participate in mandatory activities such as giving an amount of their earnings, determined by the government in the tax code, to other people. Clearly, the above two notions of rights are at odds with each other. To enforce a welfare right, those who produce things and those who can pay for them can legally be forced to provide these "rights" for others who need them. In today's "civilized" society, the enforcement comes every April 15th when creators of wealth fill out their "voluntary" tax forms and send checks to one or more governments. If they do not pay, they will be put in jail. The aggressor is the government, consisting of representatives of some US citizens, and the victims are the taxpayers who are in an unchosen relationship with the government. In other words, taxation is theft and extortion, thus a violation of an individual's liberty rights.   The real thieves?   As advocates of capitalism, libertarians are often accused of advocating of "Social Darwinism" and "jungle law." Yet, the fittest of the jungle are those who use force and predation to acquire goods. Such activity is a illegal in a capitalist society, where liberty rights are protected, so the fittest are those who deal with other based on mutual consent. A society with protection of welfare "rights" resembles jungle law, since the predatory government can legally seize property from some people and give it to others. I find it interesting the people do not mind advocating government programs that violate their liberty rights. Many claim that the enforcement of welfare "rights" does not violate liberty rights because there exists a "social contract" in which each person agrees to be "in the system." Yet, just as modern liberals at Swarthmore protested that they did not sign the Contract with America back in 1994, I have not signed a social contract. Nor did I provide a "tacit" or "implied" consent by living in this society, just as a woman wearing tight clothes or a "provocative" clothing never "asks for" some form of sexual harassment. Theft, coercion, and extortion by one person is against the law, as is theft by a mob. If an individual has no right to steal from someone, then a large number of individuals have no right either, as zero times anything is zero. So why does a representative of individuals with no right to force others to do things have a right to do so? Like conservatives, modern liberals want to impose their values on people by forcing them to do or fund what they deem worthy. Classical Liberals and libertarians believe it is both wrong and impractical to deal with others by force. I can argue ad nauseam about how regulations and government programs do not "work," i.e., achieve their intended goals, even though I might share those goals with modern liberals. Yet, the primary issue at hand is not how to "solve society's ills" by any means necessary. It is that protecting people's rights is not a means to a social end that can be discarded when people, because they are free, don't act as others might like them to. The etymology of the "L-Word" indicates that it has to do with freedom: the Latin word for "free" is liber. Classical Liberals and libertarians advocate an individual's freedom from restraint. If modern liberals advocate any sort of freedom, it is an individual's freedom to earn money only to have it taken away from him. Classical Liberals hold that we belong to ourselves. Modern liberals hold that we belong, by law, to whomever the majority deems needy of us. The needy are those individuals and groups who could not acquire what they need to survive by dealing with others on a voluntary basis, be it trade or charity (which is still a type of trade). So in the end, modern liberals ultimately advocate freedom from self-responsibility.

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