Don't tolerate government meddling

I value liberty -- the freedom to exercise my rights -- enough to leave you alone to exercise your rights. I respect your liberty as much as I value my own. It shocks me to realize how many people don’t do the same.

Instead, I see people who want so badly to control what other people are allowed to do that they eagerly sacrifice their own liberty in order to give government the power to govern others. To me, this seems insane and self-destructive.

How can people be so afraid of freedom?

It didn’t happen naturally. They’ve been conditioned to be afraid.

I hear people point to cases where government backed off a little from violating one right and things didn’t go well. One example commonly used is California. The state backed off on punishing drug use and theft and now they have dirty needles and human waste littering the streets and mobs of coordinated thieves cleaning out stores.

Well, yes, when you stop violating the right to put whatever you wish into your own body, but continue to violate the fundamental human right to defend yourself and your property from all attackers, it’s not going to work well. You’re going to get California every time you do this.

You can’t “defund the police” yet continue to impose anti-gun rules and punish those who act in defense and expect things to improve. Liberty is a package deal, and trying to split it up means you have planned to fail. Liberty didn’t fail; it was never given a chance.

Government depends on you believing liberty can’t work. If you ever saw the truth you’d never tolerate government meddling in any important matter again. It would put a lot of newly unemployed former government employees in a position of having to find productive work. They’ll do everything possible to prevent this from happening. It means they’ll continue to do things designed to fail to prove how much you need them. It’s a lie.

The next time you believe respecting human rights didn’t turn out well, step back and think about why it seems that way. Was the outcome rigged to fail from the beginning? By whom? Who benefits? Which rights did they continue to violate to orchestrate the failure? What fears are they hoping to generate and use? What expanded power are they trying to get? Why would you let them get away with it?

Farwell’s Kent McManigal champions liberty. Contact him at: [email protected]