Maggie's Farm

No Looking Backwards (in this morning's links) linked to an editorial in New Hampshire's Union Leader, which explains the freedom view of the world in terms of the minor issue of mandatory seatbelts.

When freedom is removed from the political equation, and replaced by benevolence, the result is tyranny. Don't all tyrants say they want what is good for some or most of "their people"?

I love the C.S. Lewis observation, which we often quote:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

I will trust free markets over government any day of the week.

The problem with all of the "minor" issues - trans-fats, smoking, motorcycle helmets, seatbelts, gun control, etc - is that they eventually add up to an oppressive, dispiriting burden, as in the UK. A quote from the Union Leader article:

When the state crosses that line and begins protecting adults from themselves, the people have lost their authority over the state. At once, there is no decision the state may not make regarding an individual's personal behavior. The people have conceded that power, and it is no longer theirs.

New Hampshire remains the "live free or die" state, and its people take that motto very seriously. Start telling them how to live their lives, and they will start telling you exactly where you can go.

That's right. But you can feel like a nut and a crank standing up and opposing each tiny, seemingly well-intentioned step that government takes, even though the imposition of most of these issues is really driven by controlling do-gooder cranks with too much time on their hands. The problem, as I see it, is that these are laws, not advice. Heck - I usually use my seatbelt - especially when I am  driving my pick-up, drinking Coors Lite, reading the paper, shooting various animals and shooting various annoying people out the car window, listening to the radio, eating a bagel, talking on my cell, and blogging on my Blackberry - all at the same time, like every normal busy red-blooded American does.

If America doesn't still stand for individual liberty from state power, then what good are we? If we, and our politicians, remove individual liberty from the equations they apply to law-making, what are we?

If laws have to have "Environmental Impact Statements," how come they don't have to have "Freedom Impact Statements"? (I don't think I am the first to say that, but if I stole it, I don't remember from whom.)

Addendum: I should also have re-linked the Cafe Hayek piece on the subject of trans-fats (which government experts insisted upon, just a few years ago, as an improvement over lard) and the food Nazis. A nanny with cops and guns backing her up is worth calling a Nazi, in the sarcastic Seinfeld sense of the term, if you ask me. (See our Mayor Bloomberg satire, which some readers thought might be real.)

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