Losing the Little Freedoms
Philip Howard has written the best commentary I have read in a long time. It isn’t about economics, the second amendment or foreign affairs and it’s only partially about politics. I think he absolutely nailed the biggest problem in our culture over the last several decades: the loss of freedom in the the little decisions that make up daily life. We haven’t lost any big ticket political freedoms (speech, religion, etc.) but we are gradually losing out on the small, personal things in life. As he put it:
“We have become a culture of rule followers, trained to frame every solution in terms of existing law or possible legal risk. The person of responsibility is replaced by the person of caution. When in doubt, don’t.”
Amen!
This is something that I have been chewing on for a while and, to be honest, I was have a difficult time putting it in words. It was more a sense I had of the American people being stuck in a web of growing bureaucracy, restrictions and deference to government. Howard quotes Alexis de Tocqueville:
“freedom [is] less necessary in great things than in little ones…Subjection in minor affairs does not drive men to resistance, but it crosses them at every turn, till they are led to sacrifice their own will. Thus their spirit is gradually broken and their character enervated.”
Unfortunately, Howard doesn’t really offer much of a fix. He does list a few things but there needs to be much more meat on the bones. There also needs to be a game plan for building a movement in support of it. I hope this is just a start and that we’ll hear more from him and other like minded people.
He has identified the problem, now let’s go out and fix it.