Give Me Liberty, Or Give Me Welfare!

In modifying Patrick Henry’s famous quote from his 1775 speech, I do not mean to equate welfare with death. My intent with the title and content of this article is to illustrate that we as adults, as citizens, as a society, must choose if we desire a country which values personal liberties and the responsibilities which come with it, OR if we desire a country with a highly parental care-taking government and the sacrifices to personal freedoms which must come with that. Most importantly, it must be recognized that neither of our leading political parties (Republican and Democrat) offer us a sensible and sustainable choice between those options. We must demand political representation which offers us that clear choice, then allow the nation to democratically choose the preferred form of government and resulting society.

Allow me to start by illustrating a simple reality. As fundamental as the law of gravity is to physics, or as supply and demand are to economics, there is an inherent relationship between liberty and responsibility in the course of human society. The fact that our political leadership ignores this fundamental is akin to a return to believing that the earth is flat. Likewise as the Soviet Union ignored basic economic principles, their economy collapsed. I fear a similar collapse of our previously inspirational American society.

Now to explain the natural relationship between liberty and responsibility. The more liberty one desires, the more responsibility one must accept for one’s own well being. If you enjoy freedom of choice, you must accept responsibility for the consequences of your actions. Conversely, the less responsibility a person is willing to accept, the less liberty that person should feel entitled to. One could say this relationship between liberty and responsibility was core to Patrick Henry and his American independence-seeking peers. Their mission for independence (liberty) came only with the prerequisite of a willingness to accept self-responsibility, forgoing the support of the British parent nation.

Illustrating this on a practical level, imagine your teenage son or daughter asks to borrow the car to go to a friend’s birthday party. Surely your consideration will include the history of responsible behavior which that child has or has not previously displayed. In other words, if the child has consistently demonstrated high responsibility (good grades, maintains a job, respects curfew, etc), you are more willing to extend greater liberty, than if the child consistently displays lack of such responsible behavior.

Having established the “liberty-responsibility principle”, let’s now examine how our two leading political parties ignore that fundamental principle, as though ignoring the law of gravity. First, it must be exposed that contrary to contemporary labels, the Republican party does not represent a consistent “small government” (Minimalist) platform, nor does the Democratic party represent a consistent “big government” (Interventionist) platform. They both represent a contradicting mix of both platforms. Those contradictions inevitably produce a dysfunctional society.

The Democratic party allows for a relatively large government in economic terms, in the form of a care-taking parental government (welfare, health care, higher market regulations, etc). This is consistent with the modern label of big government. However, on social matters, the party is actually quite Minimalist (i.e. small, non-intervening government) in terms of tolerance of diverse values and lifestyles. In other words, the party grants high levels of individual liberty, but demands relatively low levels of personal responsibility. In the Democrats’ model society, a person can be irresponsible with their liberty, but nonetheless the government will be there to bail them out like a spoiled child. Do we want a society which behaves like spoiled children?

In an opposite form of equally irrational society, the Republican party wishes for a small government in economic terms. However it meanwhile seeks for government to play a heavy role in social matters, or “values” (religion, defining marriage, various lifestyle prohibitions, etc). This big-brother role is undeniably a form of big-government Interventionism, and collectively contradicts the liberty-responsibility principle. The Republican party expects high responsibility from the people economically, but does not grant a corresponding level of liberty. The failure of this societal model is that in dictating what people think and believe (without the liberty to think and decide for themselves), the government has left these passive people ill-equipped to be self-responsible, despite the government's expectation for personal responsibility. For example, imagine if you raised a child in a manner which dictated their every thought and action, without ever engaging their personal reasoning with questions such as “Well Billy, what do think is the right is thing to do?” Would that sheltered child grow up to be a capable self-responsible adult? Of course not. Nevertheless, the Republican party wants to dictate our thoughts and “values”, but irrationally still expects a highly self-responsible society.

In closing, consider that America was colonized by immigrants who left Britain is search of personal liberty. As liberty naturally goes hand in hand with responsibility, it was practically inevitable that an independent nation would result. So in saying “Give me liberty, or give me welfare”, I am stating that we as a society, we as a country, must be allowed to choose between truly Minimalist or truly Interventionist options. That is not to imply that such a choice is between black and white. It is a spectrum connected by many shades of gray. But we must recognize that the two party options presented to us do not offer coherent options of consistent Interventionism or consistent Minimalism. Their mutual inconsistency both lead to a dysfunctional society which ignores the liberty-responsibility principle. We must recognize these options as false, and demand better representation. Then through educated voting, we let the true voice our country be heard.

- HeadLevel