Seek to protect liberty, even when rarely used

A German once asked me what makes America so great and I reflexively answered "freedom," as that is what every schoolboy in the United States is taught.

"What makes your freedom any greater than mine?" she asked, and the only thing I could come up with was that in America there is no law against buying and reading Mein Kampf. (A free press is an important aspect of a free society, but if the only difference between one country and another is that a book by one of the most evil men in the history of the planet, and a very stupid book at that, cannot be read in the one country- then there is really very little seperating them in a practical sense.)

I then went on to how we put a man on the moon, won two world wars, and invented the automobile. She pointed out that the Soviets put a man in space first, in many ways we were late to one of those wars and in the other were, again, second to the Soviets. The she reminded me that German Karl Benz had invented the automobile.

We could have gone back and forth on American achievements, of which there have been many and of which we should be proud, but the point that stung me is that in a very practical, day to day sense, there are many places in the world that are as free as America. One could live their entire life in Belgium or Japan or New Zealand and likely be every bit as free as someone in the United States. Unless you are operating regularly in politics, or belong to some extreme group which has to regularly call upon the protections of the Bill of Rights, chances are you are an American who is not using the full protections of our system. And the more collective American society becomes (or more democratic, I would argue) the alert we are to the importance of those other, less common freedoms.

Fifty years ago this was not the case, or at least, places where you could be free were much more limited than today. There were the ANZUSUK countries of the English speaking world, but in post-WWII Europe, the emerging countries of the new West were still too unstable to be considered completely free, especially with their neighbors to the east parading missiles through squares and discussing world expansion. And forget about the developing world, where prosperity was achieved by, at best, immigration, at worst, graft. But today, there are no shortage of places which are "practically free."

And they are pretty nice. You can live a decent life in Singapore or Brazil or South Korea- places that only a few decades ago you would have been cautious about traveling to alone. We should celebrate this, of course. There maybe only one America, but if there are a few American impostors out there- well, it's better than Soviet wannabes.

As another friend recently put it "we basically have no monopoly on freedom anymore."

We do not need one though. America can only be exceptional if it adheres to its exceptional nature. We need to embrace those freedoms which protect fringe elements. Innovation originates from the edges, and our traditional stand-offish approach toward everything from industry to culture has allowed American society to evolve into the success it is today. But each step we take toward European-style socialism: a national agricultural scheme (1922) pension system (1935), welfare food program (1939), affirmative action order (1961), disability entitlement (1974), uniform education plan (1980), publicly traded corporation management structure (2002), and, of course, broad-based "healthcare reform," we move away from the unique status the United States once possessed.

If we become France, can we hope to beat the French at their own game?

This is a loss for America. But it is as much as loss for the entire world, and people everywhere who cherish liberty. If America becomes Sweden, where everyone agrees on uniform, national policies and works together toward a common goal, what of the people in the minority? What of dissent?

We must resist the temptation to accept merely practical freedom. The preservation of liberty, the purpose of government, should extend as far as possible, not to just the freedoms we deem necessary for ordinary, practical life. We need a limited government unable to encroach on the our daily freedoms like movement and purchasing choices, just as we need express prohibitions against things as critical as the establishment of a national religion and as unlikely as the forced quartering of troops in private property. We should enjoy the practical freedoms we all use daily, but understand they all spring from the same well of liberty. If that well is tainted, be it in the name of practical freedoms or in spite of them, all of liberty is in jeopardy.