On Making Things Better

I don't think it's revealing too much to say that what stuck in my mind from seeing Serenity Friday was the theme of making people better. Not in the same way as in the movie, but in the way that the statist do-gooders want to. A common desire seems to be to make people better, whether they want to be made "better" or not, so that some nice, tidy society is the result.

I don't remember what originally triggered it, but for some time I've been questioning whether my activism and continuing advocacy for freedom is of a class with the statist do-gooders. After all, am I not attempting to push my view of what's good for others on themselves, whether they want it or not? I am, in a manner of speaking. Am I not asserting that my view is the correct one, same as they? I am -- and I will continue to do so.

There's a fundamental difference between what I, and other pro-freedom individuals I know, are advocating and what typical statist do-gooders want. The statists usually have a specific vision of some sort in mind -- a welfare-woven safety net, a crime-free society, a "civil" society -- and they actively steal from the willing and unwilling alike to try to create and enforce it. And, seemingly oblivious to the mounting failures of laws and regulations to bring their vision into reality, they continue to believe that force can and will make people and society "better".

I don't have any such corresponding vision. That is to say, I don't have a specific image of How Things Should Be. No one can force a person to be "better", if he doesn't want to be. As long as Homo sapiens is around, there will be lazy, reckless, thoughtless, stupid, bad, and genuinely evil individuals in the mix. That won't change -- but what can change is who bears the brunt of those individuals' choices. Under a coercive state, we all do, more or less directly. In advocating liberty, I'm advocating a lack of central planning, of inane laws and even stupider regulations that stifle individuals' opportunities to peaceably prosper. If a person is lazy, she won't eat, except to the degree she's willing to work, or by the grace of those who choose to provide for her. If a person is stupid, he'll bear the personal or financial costs of his bad decisions, unless someone chooses to help him. If a person is evil, the amount of damage he can do will be limited, as a potential target in a free society would be more likely to take countermeasures that would remove such a person from it.

That's hardly a utopian vision. But it's much more reality-based than the planners' visions.

It may seem a small thing, advocating for nothing rather than something, but it's what makes the difference between the other do-gooders and freedom advocates. They tend to want limitations, restrictions, diktats that say, "You must do it this way!"; I want no restrictions and diktats on rights-respecting behavior, so that individuals are free to try things whatever way they want. The planners tend to have visions of neat, orderly societies and transactions; I'd like to see (even though it'd probably overwhelm me at times) more free-wheeling societies and transactions that come together spontaneously and voluntarily, without planning and power-broker dealing.

In part because of objections to pushing my vision on others, I've backed off of the kind of pro-freedom activism I used to engage in. I have no more legitimate claim to force my vision on others than any statist do-gooder. That doesn't mean, though, that I've given up, nor that I equate my position with theirs. Fundamentally, where their visions fail and mine will ultimately succeed, is because I am right. Not because my lack-of-plan is better than any of their plans -- but because what I envision is simply humans living our lives in accordance with our nature. That nature is to be free individuals who enter into social exchanges for their benefit, and to bear the consequences of one's choices.