Chapter 1

What is Freedom?

“And what is this liberty, whose very name makes the heart beat faster and shakes the world?”

– Frederic Bastiat[1] The Law (1850)

If there is one thing that is uniquely associated with America, it is liberty, or freedom.  From the moment that Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at Yorktown, America has been a symbol of liberty to the entire world.  Since the end of World War II, when the United States assumed a leadership role for the western hemisphere, it has been the leader of the “free world.”  At sporting events, standing crowds begin their ovation when the vocalist singing the national anthem gets to the words, “O’er the land of the free.”  Even in everyday conversations, scarcely a day goes by that one does not hear someone say, “Do what you like, it’s a free country.”  While we suffer through good times and bad with the rest of the world, the overwhelming majority of Americans are grateful that, come what may, they live in America, the land of the free.

However, although we all agree that America is the “land of the free,” the next question may be a little bit harder to answer.  What is freedom?  How is it defined?  What makes America the “land of the free?”  How would we know if we were to lose our freedom?  What is it that our soldiers die for, and our politicians swear to defend?

We have been told a lot of things about what freedom is not.  From the end of World War II until 1991, most Americans knew that freedom was not communism.  Communism was the system of government practiced in the USSR and its satellite countries, where there was no free press, no freedom of religion, no free elections, and not even the freedom to leave.  For almost three generations, Americans lived in the “free world” during its “Cold War” with the communist eastern bloc.  If there is one thing we know, it is that communism is not freedom.

Does that mean that whatever is not communism is freedom?  No.  There are and have been monarchies that are certainly not communist, but that we nevertheless agree are not “free.”  Our own country fought for its freedom against the monarch George III of England, whom the American colonists accused of tyranny.  Likewise, the Royal House of Saud may be an ally of the U.S. government, but not many Americans would regard Saudi Arabia as a “free country.”  Neither would we consider most other monarchies to be examples of liberty.  Like communism, monarchy is not freedom.

Perhaps we can define freedom more easily by looking at its antithesis.  What is the direct opposite of freedom?  Merriam-Webster Dictionary lists slavery among antonyms for freedom.  Surely, here we have found a start.  Most people would agree that slavery is the complete absence of freedom.  The Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves.  While in the state of slavery, they were not free.  However, is “freedom” merely the absence of slavery?  Surely our founding fathers bled to give us a higher standard than this?

If we are told anything about freedom by our teachers, politicians, or journalists, it is that freedom is democracy.  Democracy is the definition of freedom in today’s discourse.  When Iraq held its first elections after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s government, politicians and journalists celebrated the Iraquis’ first taste of freedom.  Certainly, democracy is a vast improvement over the autocratic rule of a dictator, but does democracy automatically mean freedom?  If democracy is rule by majority vote, what about the minority?  What if 51 % of the people voted to make the other 49% slaves?

In fact, most Americans would be quite surprised to learn what the founding fathers really thought about democracy.  Any objective analysis would conclude that the founders’ feelings about democracy were somewhere between suspicion and contempt.  Thomas Jefferson said,

“The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.”[2] 

James Madison said, “Democracy is the most vile form of government ... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention: have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property: and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths,”[3]

And also,

“Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression.  In our Government, the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of Constituents.”[4]

Can this be true?  The founding fathers were ambivalent toward democracy?  For many people reading this book, this idea is absolutely bewildering.  More shocking still is what the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution say about democracy – nothing.  Nowhere in our founding documents will you find the word democracy or the assertion, either implicit or explicit, that our government is a democracy.  How can this be?

Despite what we are told ad nauseum by politicians, television journalists, talk show hosts, and political activists, the United States of America has never been a democracy.  Our government, contrary to what even many politicians seem to believe, is a constitutional republic.  We choose our leaders using the democratic process of majority vote, but that is the extent to which the Unites States involves itself with democracy.  We will explore the important difference between a democracy and a constitutional republic in a later chapter.

For the purposes of this discussion, we can at least conclude this: Not only is democracy not necessarily freedom, but there is some evidence that democracy actually poses a danger to freedom.  Apart from the pure heresy of the idea, it leaves us with an even greater problem.  We are no closer to defining freedom.  If even democracy is not freedom, then perhaps freedom doesn’t really exist!  If we are not to find freedom in democracy, where else can we look?

Quite frankly, we won’t find the answer in today’s political discourse.  While terrorism, healthcare, unemployment, gay marriage, and a host of other “major” issues dominate public debate, freedom is an issue that is just too quaint, too academic, or too forgotten to get any airplay.  Yet, as we shall see as we explore the different subjects in this book, freedom is the fundamental issue.  In fact, by the end of this book it will be obvious that despite all of the different problems facing the United States of America today, it is the only issue.  That may be hard to accept at this point, given the daily tidal wave of propaganda that we endure.  However, by the end of this book, it will be plainly obvious that there is nothing more to be concerned about in politics, economics, education, and our everyday life other than freedom.  However, if freedom is really that important, if our soldiers are truly dying for our freedom, we’d better be absolutely sure we know what it is.

In order to answer the question posed by Bastiat in the subtitle of this chapter, we will have to go back to the beginning.  Our founding fathers faced no such quandary about the definition of freedom, because they knew exactly what it was.  They were children of the Age of Reason, and derived their ideas about freedom directly from the enlightenment philosophers, including John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Jean Jaques Rousseau, and David Hume.  While the ideas of these philosophers were profound and (no pun intended) revolutionary, they can be communicated in plain English that any American can understand.  In fact, it was an understanding of these revolutionary ideas by average American colonists that inspired the revolution that gave birth to a nation.

The idea that opens the door to the true meaning of freedom is individual liberty.  Despite the emphasis in today’s discourse placed upon the “general welfare” and the “common good,” the tradition of liberty that our country was founded upon had nothing to do with either.  Instead, our founders believed in the doctrine of the Rights of Man, developed by the Enlightenment philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries.  The Declaration of Independence states,

“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,”[5]

This passage is quoted widely in popular culture.  Invariably, the words that are emphasized are “that all men are created equal.”  These are fine words, and worthy of veneration.  However, let us not forget the rest of the passage, because there are even more important concepts contained in this short passage.  Namely, that all men “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”  Thus, every human being, having been created in a state of equality with all other human beings, has rights that no man or other earthly power can take from him.  These rights are “endowed by their Creator,” so that government – even a democratically elected government – has no power to usurp them.  To the founding fathers this was “self evident.”  It was true based purely upon man’s existence itself.

This idea is drawn directly from the philosophy of John Locke, who wrote,

“A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same faculties, should also be equal one amongst another without subordination or subjection,”[6]

While the rights alluded to are “endowed by their Creator,” it is important to note that the founders did not specify who the Creator was.  Too often, those arguing for the ideals of our republic make the fatal mistake of basing the Rights of Man upon belief not only in God, but specifically upon Christianity.  While the founders were by no means ambivalent towards Christianity, and in fact most of them either practiced it or at least admired its teachings, belief in Christianity or even in God is not necessary to support the argument made by the founders for the Rights of Man.  The beauty of this idea is that it transcends religion and thus welcomes members of all religions, and those with no religious beliefs at all.  Thus, the first building block of freedom – individual, unalienable rights – can be claimed by Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, and every person on earth.

So what are these Rights of Man, which cannot be taken away by any power on earth?  Our Declaration goes on to say, “that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”[7]

At first glance, this statement might be a bit deceiving, maybe even a little disappointing.  Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?  Is that it?  Surely we have more rights than these!  However, upon closer examination, this statement is by no means an all-inclusive list.  The text says that “among these” are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  These are not all of the unalienable rights, nor does the statement exclude other rights.  The Declaration merely points out that these are some of the rights of each individual.

The right to life is pretty easy to understand.  Most civilized societies have laws against murder.  Each individual has a right not to be killed.  So far, so good.  What about the other two?  We are in the midst of trying to define “liberty,” or “freedom,” so let us put that aside for the moment.  The Declaration says we have the right to “the pursuit of happiness.”  What does that mean?  Does it mean nothing?  Or does it mean everything?  What if it makes me happy to rape and pillage, or steal people’s tomatoes, or blow up buildings?  Surely, I don’t have a right to pursue happiness like that?

Jefferson and the other founders did not feel the need to explain this statement because, to them, the truths they were expressing were self evident.  They were so firmly grounded in the enlightenment tradition of liberty and the Rights of Man that they felt comfortable making certain assumptions.  We shall go to the source, and rediscover just what these unalienable rights are, and what this liberty is that “makes the heart beat faster and shakes the world.”

Again, this idea springs directly from Locke’s philosophy, as he writes,

“To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.”[8]

While there may be a temptation to conclude from this passage that people should be allowed to do whatever they want, even if it may cause harm to others, careful examination of the passage indicates otherwise.  For, while people are free to do what they want, they must do so “within the bounds of the law of nature.”  Therefore, there is a limit to what the individual is allowed to do.  What is the limit?  Locke is very specific about what that limit is.

“The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions…”[9]

Finally, we have some indication of what freedom is, rather than what it is not.  The first part of the Locke passage is easily understood.  No one has the right to harm another person’s life or health.  This prohibits individuals from initiating violence against one another.  Therefore, freedom or liberty is not the unlimited ability to do whatever you want, nor is it confined to the arbitrary limits placed upon people by governments.

In summary, freedom is an innate, unalienable right that allows each individual to do as they please as long as they do not violate the rights of others, those violations including:

Initiating the use of force or violence

Infringing upon another person’s liberty

Harming them in their possessions.

This last limit upon the actions of a free individual is important.  Locke spends an entire chapter of the Second Treatise talking about it.  It has to do with the right to property, which is arguably the most important right that an individual has.  Today it is the right that is least understood, and most attacked.  Property rights are important enough that we will spend some time in the next chapter coming to a clear definition of property, how it is created, how it is obtained, and what right the owner has to it.

However, before leaving the subject of defining freedom, there are a few points that we should review for emphasis.  First, the rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence and drawn out of Locke’s philosophy are unalienable.  They cannot be taken away by any power on earth, including a majority vote.  The reason that the founders were suspicious of democracy was because of their fear that the majority would oppress the individual by voting away the individual’s rights, especially property rights.  This was the reason for the separation of powers and the limits on government authority.  Even a majority vote can be a threat to freedom.

Second, in any conflict between individual liberty and the will of the majority, individual liberty always takes priority.  There is no just compromise between the rights of the individual and the will of the majority.   This is to some extent merely making the first point in reverse, but it is a vital concept.  Society doesn’t have rights; individuals do.  Society is nothing more than a collection of individuals, so protecting each individual in society protects society.  Today, however, individual liberty is under almost constant attack because of its perceived conflict with “the common good” or “the needs of society.”  Once individual rights and liberty are properly understood, all of these supposed dilemmas disappear.

©Thomas Mullen 2008