Freedom is Endangered

Of the two major political parties, the Republican Party is the one closest to advocating for freedom from government control. Democrats consistently support higher taxes and more regulations to permit government officials to control our lives. They support political (group) decision making over empowering individuals to make their own decisions. We have come to expect Democrats to support increasing the power of government at the expense of individual freedom.

It is sad and dangerous, though, when Republicans support government power over individual freedom. If the Republican Party is not strong in its stand for freedom and individual rights against the power of government, then our Republic is in danger of deteriorating into a (we hope benevolent) despotism because people distrust or forbid individuals to run their own lives make their own decisions.

Over the past few years, I have encountered Republicans who believe these things:

1. The food school children eat should be controlled by government to avoid obesity on the grounds that taxpayers will have to pay for health care issues caused by obesity and poor nutrition.
   
2. Parents are less qualified than government officials to determine how their children should be educated and which schools they should attend.
3. Freedom of the press should be restricted for businesses printing a message considered offensive.
4. Private businesses should be forced to allow their employees to not perform assigned tasks if they morally object to them without any financial consequence to the employee or compensation to the employer.

This is why those beliefs threaten freedom:

1. This implies that the government owns people as chattel instead of people being free. The solution to this problem is to eliminate taxpayer funded health care and allow individuals to take care of themselves and encourage private charities to take care of those who can't. Government should be a health care provider of last resort. Republicans (especially legislators) who don't get that are buying into a Socialist agenda instead of trying to combat Socialism and restore freedom.
2. Opposition to school vouchers, for example, on the grounds that government officials are better able to decide how a child should be educated than the parents means that we don't trust private citizens to be free. First, it does not make sense that parents would not be able to better determine what is best for their children more effectively than government officials who probably won't even know or love the child even a fraction as much as the parents. More importantly, though, if parents are not competent enough to decide how their children should be educated, how will they be deemed intelligent enough to select the government officials in charge of their children's education? This contempt for individual decision making and respect for government decision making is a long term prescription for despotism.
3. Promoting laws against speech or writing against a group supported by Republicans undermines the entire moral principle used to object to "hate speech" rules and other provisions used to restrict freedom of expression against those supported by liberals. Freedom means people are free to say stupid and offensive things. It also means we are free to ignore those people and not support them either morally or financially. Republicans passing laws to prohibit expression instead of exercising their rights to either ignore or counter that expression accepts the despotic notion pushed by liberals that there is "acceptable" and "unacceptable" speech and that government, rather than individuals exercising their own judgment independently, should make those decisions.
4. Supporting special rights for a special class of people Republicans like accepts that the liberal notion that government should interfere in the private sector to regulate the employer/employee relationship instead of allowing employers and employees to negotiate mutually acceptable arrangements. Accepting the idea that employees are powerless against employers and cannot find another job more suited to their lifestyle and personal preferences is to accept the notion that employees are not free, independent, self determining people. When liberals do this, conservatives generally object. If conservatives do it, then they lose the moral justification for objecting when liberals do it. This puts employees and employers in a role of being vassals with special privileges and limitations granted by the state instead of independent, free agents who can make their own decisions about how to earn a living or run a business. As when liberals do these things, conservatives erode freedom, which is important to generally protecting all of our rights, when they push a particular agenda that restricts freedom for a "good" cause.
   

We know that Democrats do not accept the notion of individual freedom. They accept that favored classes should be free to use the resources of less favored classes without freely given consent. That is, they accept freedom for themselves at the expense of others who do not agree with them. The only other major political party is the Republican Party.

If the Republican Party and Republican elected officials will not firmly stand for freedom, then the existence of the United States as a free society is in serious danger.