Security or Freedom
Unearned Liberty is often traded for promises of Security
But when Freedom is traded for Security, one ends up with Neither
Many Americans inherited prosperity and have no idea where it comes from. They find themselves in financial difficulties or feel left out of the American Dream and don’t understand why. They see that free markets have failed them, but don't understand why. Unless they figure out why free markets fail, they are likely to give up their freedom for promises of material security, provided by government that claims to care more than the rober barons that wrecked the free market.
But the problem is not the free market itself but the way it was taken over by those with financial and political power. It has been ruined by Crony Capitalism, not by the freedom to control your own financial life in the free market. It is in fact, the inversion of the free market, in which the wealthy and powerful in business and govermnent to enrich themselves at the expense of the populous, using the laws and financial power to distort the free market and make is anything but free.
Oblivious to the fact that their difficulties are the result of a distorted free market created by failed central planning and self-serving relationships between big businesses and government officials. and lacking an understanding of the historical roots of liberty and the principles and traditions upon which it rests, far too many are ready to trade their liberty for government “security” and will end up with neither.
Enticed by the Utopian promises of the welfare state, many are eager to embrace statism, believing it will solve their problems. Economic crises frequently lead to political changes that lessens liberty. But as the economist and philosopher F. A. Hayek observed, liberty “… has often emerged from adversity with renewed strength.”
Whether we will fall prey to the superficial appeal of the impoverishing welfare state or experience a revival of universally enriching liberty will depend largely upon whether those who love liberty and understand its value can organize themselves sufficiently to counter the generously tax-funded supporters of statism. Although the traditions and institutions that make liberty possible have evolved over millennia, individual liberty has been a rare exception in a world full of tyranny. If this uncommon culture is not passed on, the light of liberty will be extinguished, and with it the hopes of not only our descendants but also of the yearning masses in the developing world.
Whether we and future generations live in statism’s poverty or freedom’s prosperity depends on whether we rise to the occasion and rekindle the light of hope that once emanated from the Statue of Liberty and throw off the shackles with which the rich in business and government plan to bind us.