The Danger of Liberal Political Freedoms

Allow me to state my premises as clearly as possible straight from the beginning, that liberal political freedoms have been institutionalized not for their own sake, but because of the enervating effects they have on any strong and effective central government. You see, liberal political freedoms have come down to us from Revolutionaries who had been intent upon bringing down their Ancient Regimes. They attacked Monarchies and even Parliamentary Governments, and while professing a high regard for Freedoms, and in some cases Equality, their effective intent was to weaken every means that Governments had to maintain law and order in the face of open rebellion and revolution.

Of course the Revolutionaries never themselves ever exercised the least bit of tolerance or constraint. While they demand rights for themselves, they extend none to others, and most Democratic Revolutions had waded in the blood of those whom the democrats would not tolerate. But the History books tend to suppress this kind of information, not wishing to project any somber shades on what they insist should be bright happy patriotic colors.

One really needs to be cynical about all so called revolutions. They always seem to occur when the upper and middle classes are beginning to crowd themselves out, and that while a few rich can get richer, a far greater number are caught in a declining standard of living. So up springs violent revolutions that effectively both thin out the over-population at the top as well as allowing for the pillaging of wealth, a re-distribution which is the real aim of every revolution. Well, then, we should hardly then consider any of the propaganda from these revolutions to be tantamount to sacred scripture, holding ‘founding fathers’ to be on the par with saints and prophets. They may well have been only motivated opportunists with a way for words, saying anything that could hurt their enemies while advancing themselves… much like we see in modern political rhetoric.

But I do concede that many revolutionaries have indeed believed their own propaganda. People are like that. They’ve never been trained in the intellectual discipline to use their reason and intelligence to attain to anything such as impartial Wisdom or any Absolute Truth, but they use their minds to justify their emotional intents. (a study was done where subjects were secretly hypnotized and given a suggestion to ring a bell on a desk when the Professors telephone rang. Most did. When those who rang the bell were asked why they rang the bell, 80% made up on the spot reasons, rationales, justifications for their behavior – excuses for why they did what they did. Only 20% confessed that it was purely an impulse and that they could give no reason for it at all, or that they suspected some trick, for, after all, they were participating in a study. Well, what this study demonstrates is that for about 80% of people, their intellects are used to justify how they will behave anyway, that they use their brains only to come up with excuses for themselves. Only 20% of the people can be counted upon to be intellectually honest). For most people their brains are put to the service of their feelings and appetites. And then there is the unfortunate fact that most people are really stupid, and we can’t really expect any valid thinking from them anyway. So, such people may be poor one day, rise up and kill all the rich people and then take all that wealth for themselves, and even after all that still sincerely believe that they carried out a good deed for the most altruistic of revolutionary goals. They killed millions and leveled cities for human rights and freedom. That it made their fortunes was only a happy coincidence. Indeed, people do have consciences, and I suppose they need to be able to tell themselves something so that they are not overwhelmed by guilt.

But the most intelligent of them know the truth. For instance, we can see an example from the American Revolution. After the French defeated the English for them at sea, and the Americans were able to establish their own regimes, they found that all the social and political infrastructures were bankrupt and collapsing. Suddenly, when law and order was to be their own concern, they were extremely conscious of its demise, and wondered how they could go about rebuilding what they had just spent the better part of a decade deliberately tearing down. One of the most consciously intelligent personages of the American Revolution, Alexander Hamilton, was asked what might be done to ameliorate the chaotic situation, and he replied that the Colonies should first get their fiscal houses in order, and that while it would seem most ironical, ‘we should consider levying a tax on tea’. Hmmmm. Maybe it was meant as a joke, but all of the killing and rebellion had started with the Bostonians murdering British Police because of a silly tea tax. But Hamilton did push forward a wide spectrum of taxes on imported goods, and so he became something of a famous ‘reactionary’. But perhaps we should see it as some attainment of Wisdom, that the revolutionary had enough sense to put away the revolution after it had been won, and to move on to setting up a the New Regime, taking every precaution that it should not be as vulnerable to rebellion as the last Regime.

Today, every progressive liberal Government is being threatened by Islamic Extremists. In the face of these deadly serious threats, all of these Liberal Governments, having acquired their liberal freedoms in the wake of some kind of violent revolutions as described above, they all maintain that it is of some balanced and equal concern that they guard their freedoms and liberal traditions. They forget that these liberal institutions were put in place only to weaken their old governments so they could be overthrown, and then to keep these governments so weak that they could not interfere with the rise of unregulated property interests and various capitalist lobbies. The real aim was to paralyze effective government. Yes, many individuals were able to profit. Barbarians who steal the candlesticks of a ruined Civilization think of pillaging as an acceptable expression of freedom, when it is they themselves who get to do the pillaging.

But we now need to consider that certain foreign barbarians may now be attempting to take advantage of this institutionalized weakness of the West.

It is more or less inevitable that permissive institutions will decline to be replaced by stronger forms. The Greek Philosophers had enough experience of political life and their own history to draw up a delineation of a cycle of political evolutions. Those in the West might guess that Democracy would be the ultimate end and the highest point of the political curve, but it wasn’t. You see, Democracy was always simply an expression of revolution and rebellion, which was never strong enough to persist very long after having destroyed the regime it had originally targeted. Democracy would decline into factionalism, class wars or ethnic or religious conflicts. Democracy then would eventually either be co-opted by or conquered by a Dictator or Tyrant who could impose some kind of order. Well, Dictators often succumb to other Dictators, and so there could be an extended period of unrest, but when a strong and long lived Dictator comes to rule then the bureaucracies can be allowed to settle in and institutionalize themselves, and what finally results is a strong authoritarian government that after several generations has been in place long enough to warrant a sense of legitimacy. Remember that the Democratic Wars and Revolutions and then the Civil Wars of contending Dictators would significantly reduce the population levels that had originally triggered much of the original dissatisfactions. And so when there is the eventual stabilization of strong Government, the ensuing steady institutions usher in an age of Peace and Prosperity. Such good times could conceivably go on forever except that with time there would be the increasing population pressures that create a rise in revolutionary dissatisfaction. The cycle is then repeated.

Anyway, it is certain that our present institutions, designed with the express purpose of being weak and ineffectual, are not the High Point of Civilization, but perhaps better understood as a low point. While our own Citizens had been the only ones to take advantage of the open Pillaging, we failed to consider the potential for harm. But now we are being invaded by swarms of Islamic Extremists who rely upon every liberal protection and shield of due process to keep them invulnerable while they attack us.

Perhaps it would be enough to declare an Emergency. Indeed, we could institutionalize such states of emergency. For instance, when either statistics on crime or statistics on terrorism would hit a certain pre-determined target point, then a State of Emergency would automatically come into effect. Then Police of a certain rank could be given summary powers to be absolute magistrates within their jurisdictions.

Would there be abuses. Well, yes, almost certainly. But let us look at the choices we have. We can allow Civilization to collapse where upon we may expect the death of millions as the life-giving infrastructures of the World Economy brake down. Or we can acknowledge that there will be a relatively small number of abuses.

Yes, yes, I have heard the famous quote about “better a hundred guilty should go free then that one innocent should suffer”. Blah! Remember that such quotes are propaganda tools that come from revolutionaries that are intent upon destroying their Governments and toppling their Civilizations… so they may grab a golden candlestick that they had not had before. But now that our own interest is motivated in protecting Civilization we should re-evaluate that math, and be glad when we can dispatch 100 guilty terrorists with an uncertainty of only 1%.