Why progressive policy solutions lead to more freedom for North Carolinians

Quick take: There have been a lot of attempts by conservative groups in recent years to hijack the "freedom" label. Now is the time for thoughtful North Carolinians to reject these clumsy and simplistic arguments. The truth of the matter is that poverty, environmental degradation and the excesses of corporations pose just as much of a threat to freedom as taxes and government bureaucracy.

Here's a word that it's past time for North Carolina progressives to stand up and recapture: "freedom." For many years now, conservative advocacy groups and their political allies have been using the word with such frequency that many thinking people have become numb to their efforts to, in effect, appropriate it.

Over at the market fundamentalist think tanks, "freedom" (or, often "pro-freedom") are labels that are applied to nearly every report, issue brief and blog post. The "logic" goes something like this: "Any time government establishes a law or, especially, collects a tax, it does so at the expense of individuals and/or corporations that would have otherwise had the ‘freedom' to act in a different way. Therefore, any action or agenda that supports such laws or taxes is ‘anti-freedom' and any action or agenda that resists such new laws or taxes is ‘pro-freedom.'"

Here are some examples of this flawed philosophy in action:

• A law that limits one's ability to spew whatever one might choose from one's smokestack into the atmosphere: "Anti-freedom."

• Laws that limit one's ability to import a loaded firearm or to inject toxic tobacco smoke into a public place: "Anti-freedom."

• A tax that calls on all with the ability to pay a little extra in order to raise the quality of our public schools or assure that all citizens have access to decent health care: "Anti-freedom."

• A law that restricts the ability of individuals to marry because of their sexual orientation or to control their own bodies when it comes to matters of human reproduction: "Anti-freedom"…no, wait, "Pro-freedom" (more on this below).

Just last week, a staffer at one Raleigh-based group even attacked the budget bill passed by the North Carolina Senate as "anti-freedom." Meanwhile, Rand Paul, the Republican nominee for Governor of Kentucky and a supposed "libertarian-conservative," expressed his belief that those provisions of federal civil rights law that compel privately-owned public accommodations to serve all persons, regardless of race, wrongfully limit the "freedom" of business owners.

Of course, by any thoughtful assessment, such arguments are as ridiculous as they are simplistic. Most middle school civics students could quickly figure out that freedom is, in many ways, an empty concept for the destitute or the homeless. Despite the almost total lack of government limitations on their ability to act, the inhabitants of post-Katrina New Orleans sure as heck didn't have a lot of "freedom."

A 19^th Century French writer and critic of inequality, Anatole France, hit on the same basic point from a different angle with his wry and memorable observation that "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

Unfortunately, through sheer repetition and some manipulative marketing (usually involving the American flag and/or other patriotic images), the ideological right has made a lot of headway with this tactic. Despite the occasional flap caused by an overmatched dimwit like Paul, many people who should know better have come to accept this demonstrably false label for the far right's positions.

As with so many of the modern right's successful manipulations of language (think of the "Healthy Forests Initiative" or the recent advice to Republican politicians by conservative politico, Frank Luntz to attack every new consumer protection regulation of the financial industry as a "Wall Street bailout") the truth matters a whole lot less than how and how aggressively the idea is sold.

True freedom indicators

Here are some guideposts worth considering when examining policy proposals through the "freedom" lens:

#1 – Freedom is for people. Despite the efforts of those on the right to enhance and elevate the wealth and power of some people by conferring constitutional rights on state-created entities under their control (i.e., corporations), the truth is that such entities have little or nothing to do with "freedom." One might as well confer constitutional rights on a road or a computer. Corporations are not people. They are merely a powerful tool that our democratic society established and uses to promote the growth of wealth and well-being.

#2- Freedom is about progress. The evolution and development of American society is about promoting and expanding freedom to more and more people. There was no idyllic time in the past that we ought to pine for. Indeed, it's clear that more Americans probably enjoy more freedom today (of thought, speech, and religion and from fear and want) than at any time in our history. The objective of public policy ought to be to keep moving this ball forward.

#3 – Freedom is best secured in a healthy and wealthy society. There is little real freedom in a society that is so poisoned by pollution or threatened by the rampant use of violent weapons that people cannot safely exit their homes. Similarly, an impoverished child with no realistic opportunity of gaining an education or access to health care has little hope of securing much meaningful freedom.

#4 – Governments are not the only threat to freedom. Though governments have frequently infringed upon the rights of people throughout history and deserve to be vigilantly monitored (witness the hypocritical efforts of self-styled "conservatives" to limit reproductive and sexual freedoms and to trample protections against self-incrimination and cruel or unusual punishments), there are other threats that must also be countered. Giant corporations and other private actors that pervert the notion of a free market, attempt to corner the market on speech or threaten the health and well-being of people must also be countered. Here, democratic systems and structures can play a hugely beneficial role in promoting human freedom.

Building a real pro-freedom agenda

The upshot of all this, of course, is that a progressive policy agenda – one that invests in people, builds for the future, promotes shared sacrifice and common good solutions, eschews trickledown economics, zealously promotes human rights and protects all individuals from the excesses of government and large private institutions – is the best hope for genuinely promoting true, broadly-shared freedom.

The sooner North Carolinians come to recognize this truth and reject the simplistic efforts of conservative ideologues to seize and manipulate this hallowed concept, the better.