As I write this, I've just finished watching the German film Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others), which won an Oscar for best foreign film. It details the activities of the Stasi, the East German Secret Police as they tracked and monitored hundreds of thousands of East Germans who posed a "risk" or "threat" to the state, or to the "collective good".

This film reminded me how blessed we are, how privileged we are to live in freedom. How easy it is to forget that freedom is not the norm, rather it is the exception. Our peaceful transfer of power from one party to another every 4 or 5 years without violence or bloodshed is truly remarkable in light of human history. While we, in the West, are far from perfect, we are certainly the exception to a world of state control, of oppression, of "planning" for common good. Consider how Russia has slid back towards tyranny and "control" by the state.

How is it that actions done in the name of the "common good" so often lead to tyranny and the subjugation of the individual? I believe to a degree that Karl Marx and perhaps even Lenin did what they did out of the belief that they were acting for the good of the "people" or the proletariat. It was the unhelpful few, stuck on the idea of "individualism" that prevented socialism's expanse throughout the world. How then does individualism foster freedom, while collectivism fosters, ultimately, tyranny and authoritarianism?

One reason is that anything can be justified in the name of the common good. Rights can be trampled, lives extinguished, and dignities disregarded. However, when the individual’s rights are placed above that of the state or the collective, and even that of the majority, the rights, lives, and dignities of the individual cannot be cast aside arbitrarily. Yet even so, vigilance must be maintained to guard against the tyranny of the majority.

The war on terror certainly brings risks to freedoms in the name of "security," a collective good and responsibility of the state. Newt Gingrich has warned that even America would discard its freedoms faster than one can imagine in the event that a city was lost to a dirty bomb or nuclear terrorism. I fear he is dead right.

Individualism is thus superior to that of collectivism in that the state's rights and powers or subordinate to those of the individual: the essence of the Magna Carta, the Rights of Man, and the Declaration of Independence.

I would strongly recommend The Lives of Others to remind you of the fragility of freedom. How very exceptional we are. Let us not forget that freedom is not an inevitable state in the course of human history. It must be preserved through bloodshed, through vigilance, through intellectualism, and the arts as well. Freedom is the triumph of ideas that can also inspire the blunt force of violence - a tragic, but very obvious truth.

What now threatens our freedom? Certainly, radical Islam and Jihad, not only from terrorists themselves but from our own overreaction to it in the name of the "common good" and security. State planning of all forms is an encroachment on liberty.

Perhaps the most serious threat to liberty today is state action and coercion to control economics, politics, and individual choice in the name of the environment or climate change. I do not choose those words lightly or callously. Just consider the number of areas of your life where "environmentalism" touches you: your car, your house - heating it, cooling it, building it, insulating it, your washing machine, the food you buy at the grocery store, the light bulbs you install, your flat screen TV, flying in a plane to go on vacation, and of course your wallet and taxes.

At what point do we tell government or the state, "no further"? I cannot imagine the people of any Western nation rallying to say those words at present, and it frightens me to believe that. Have we succumbed to the nanny state to such a degree that authoritarianism is only a matter of time? After all, the only difference between appeasement and submission is time.

Governments do not shrink unless they are forced to. They are leviathans that will continue to grow, expand, plan, and direct every sphere of economic, political, and social aspect of our lives unless individuals push back. We can push back without violence at the polls, and we must. But when was the last time our civilization truly pushed back? Could that be said of Reagan? Of Thatcher? Hard to truly believe when we consider that government never stopped growing throughout the 1980s and the Reagan and Thatcher "revolutions."

Be vigilant for freedom. Push back at government, or the leviathan will continue to consume and direct more and more aspects of our lives and the lives of others.

 

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