Should Everyone Except The Gov’t Be Allowed To Restrict Your Freedom Of Religion?
By David Grace (www.DavidGraceAuthor.com)
Lots of people shout the rallying cry, “Freedom”, but they don’t necessarily agree about what the word means.
Active & Passive Freedom
When I say that in my society, in my country, I have freedom of religion, most people think that means two things:
- 1) I will not be unreasonably punished for or restrained from practicing my religion, and
- 2) I will not be punished for refusing to practice some other religion.
The first type of freedom is Active Freedom, the freedom to do something.
The second type of freedom is Passive Freedom, the freedom to refuse to do something.
Freedom From Whom?
For most people, freedom of religion means more than just my being free from the government interfering with my ability to practice my religion. It means that in a free country, no one is allowed to punish me for or restrain me from practicing my religion.
You would think that everyone who thinks that individual freedom is extremely important would agree with that idea, but you would be wrong.
Libertarians Believe That Everyone Except The Government Should Be Free To Do Whatever They Can To Punish You For And Restrain You From Practicing Your Religion
Libertarians think that freedom of religion only means that the government shouldn’t be allowed to interfere with your ability to practice your religion, but that it’s perfectly fine for everyone other than the government to do whatever they want short of physical violence to inhibit, restrict and interfere with your ability to practice your religion, and the government should not be allowed to stop them from punishing you for practicing your religion.
For example, suppose the major employer in a small town hates Jews and his company refuses to hire Jews. Since he’s the most important person in town, the owners of the other businesses don’t want to offend him and most of them also refuse to hire Jews.
If Jews want to be able to feed their families, most of them are going to be forced to either give up their religion, practice it in secret, or leave town.
The libertarian’s message to the Jews in this town is:
“The business owner’s right to refuse to hire Jews is more important than your right to practice your religion. It’s up to you to find some non-violent way to make him hire Jews and if you can’t then you’re not going to have freedom of religion here until he chooses to stop punishing you for being a Jew. His freedom trumps your freedom.”
In a libertarian country a person’s freedom of religion is only as great as their ability to protect themselves from more powerful people who dislike their religion.
A libertarian country is a survival-of-the-fittest society where powerful people and organizations are allowed to use their control of economic and societal choke points such as access to jobs, credit, education, and vital goods and services to restrict the freedom of weaker people, and the government is forbidden to do anything to stop them.
The More That Powerful People Can Restrict Your Freedom The Less Free You Are
In a country where everyone except the government is free to use their power to deter others from practicing the religion of their choice, ordinary people have freedom of religion only to the extent that powerful people and powerful organizations approve of the religion they choose.
In that country
- Everyone’s freedom of religion is limited by how much power the practitioners of a religion have compared to the power of those who dislike that religion.
- Freedom is a zero-sum game where the more freedom powerful people and groups have the less freedom human beings with less power have.
The More Free The Powerful Are, The Less Free The Weak Are
This libertarian country is a “might makes right” society where your level of freedom is directly proportional to your power to protect yourself against the exercise of power by those who want to influence what you say, do, and own.
This is how freedom works in a country like that.
Freedom Of The More Powerful To Discriminate Against Your Religion
High …………………………………………………………………….Low
| — — -<|> — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — |
Freedom Of The Less Powerful To Practice Their Religion
High……………………………………………………………………… Low
| — —— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —-— — <|> — — |
====================================
Freedom From Gov’t Action By Those With Great Power
High……………………………………………………………………... Low
| — — -<|> — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -|
Freedom Of Human Beings With Little Power
High…………………………………………………………………….. Low
| — — — — — — —— — — — — — — — — — — — — — -<|> — — -|
The Conflict Between Valuing Individual Freedom & Preventing the Gov’t From Protecting Individual Freedom
You may wonder how libertarians who claim that their fundamental goal is achieving maximum individual liberty can justify promoting a society where an individual’s level of freedom is inversely proportional to their personal level of power, a country where the weaker you are the more of your freedom that powerful organizations are able to take away from you.
Why would libertarians who claim to value individual freedom above all else decide that it’s more important for a dominant business to be free to discriminate against Jews than it is for a thousand Jews to be free to practice their religion?
Why do they think that a corporation’s right to discriminate trumps thousands of individuals’ rights to practice their religion?
How Libertarians Justify This “Only As Much Freedom As You Have The Power To Protect” Philosophy
Libertarians rationalize their claim that on the one hand they are champions of individual liberty while on the other they demand that the government never be allowed to prevent powerful companies from interfering with an individual’s freedom by distinguishing between Active Freedom and Passive Freedom.
They say that while under certain circumstances it is allowable for the government to restrict someone’s Active Freedom, the government may never restrict someone’s Passive Freedom.
In other words, that while sometimes it is proper for the government to stop you from doing something, it is never acceptable for the government to make you do something.
For example:
- If my company doesn’t want to pay the medical bills for the workers injured in its factories, the government shouldn’t be able to make it pay them.
- If my cartel doesn’t want to sell its insulin at a competitive price the government shouldn’t be able to make my cartel sell insulin at a competitive price
- If my corporation doesn’t want to hire Jews, the government shouldn’t be able to make it hire Jews.
- If my media companies don’t want to accept advertising from Muslims the government shouldn’t be able to make my companies accept those ads
- If my bank doesn’t want to loan money to Muslims the government shouldn’t be able to make my bank loan money to Muslims.
- If I don’t want to rent my apartments to Jews, the government shouldn’t be able to make me rent my apartments to Jews.
Distinguishing Between Active Freedom & Passive Freedom
Libertarians believe that while the government can sometimes properly prevent someone from actively interfering with a person’s religious freedom by, for example, barricading the doors to their synagogue, the government may not prevent anyone from passively interfering with a person’s religious freedom by, for example, refusing to hire them unless they renounce their religion.
In the libertarian philosophy, the government is allowed to prevent the gang member from demanding that you give him all your money in order to keep him from shooting you, but the government cannot prevent the insulin cartel from demanding that you give it all your money in order to avoid your dying from the lack of insulin.
In their philosophy, while the gang doesn’t have the right to do something that will cause your death unless you give it your money, the cartel does have the right to put you in a position where you will die unless you give it your money.
This “active yes/passive no” theory of what conduct the government can and cannot make illegal is a distinction without a difference.
In both cases — the gang member says “Your money or your life” and the cartel says “Give me your money or you won’t get any insulin and you will die” — powerful organizations have put themselves in a controlling position where the individual will die unless the individual gives the organization a large amount of money.
Whether the death that follows nonpayment is due to the organization’s action or its refusal to act is irrelevant.
Power From Control Of Economic & Societal Choke Points
Societal and economic choke points can be employment, access to loans, education, credit, or vital products like drugs, energy, water, transportation, etc.
For a libertarian, the freedom to exploit those choke-points without facing government restriction is paramount, and individuals are not allowed to band together through their government to prevent powerful organizations from using their control of these choke points to restrict individuals’ freedom and take away their wealth.
To a libertarian, a corporation’s freedom to use those choke points as leverage to force human beings to give up their money and restrict their freedom is more important than that human being’s freedom of religion, speech and property that such leverage takes away.
“Do what we want, say what we want, don’t say what we don’t want you to say, practice the religion we like, don’t practice the religion we don’t like, give us large amounts of money and we will let you have a job, a loan, an education, good credit or continued life.
“Don’t do what we want and we will deny you passage through our choke point and you will not have the ability to say what you want, practice your religion, earn a living, create a business, maintain your health or even keep your life.”
A country operated under libertarian rules is not a country with maximum liberty for human beings. It is a country where powerful organizations are constantly engaged in a power struggle with individuals and with each other and where the prize in that conflict is the control of the loser’s freedom and property.
The False Claim That Bad Things Won’t Actually Happen
Yes, a libertarian will claim that somehow or other these powerful organizations’ schemes will eventually fail. How long is “eventually”? Two years? Five? Twenty? And until their theoretical collapse happens we are all supposed to pay their blackmail and live under their rules?
We Cannot Lose Our Property & Freedom Today In The Hope That It Will Return In Some Distant Tomorrow
If the libertarians’ claims that this loss of wealth and freedom will quickly and automatically fix itself were true why would they care if the government made those schemes illegal? If this exploitation of power is bound to fail anyway, then laws against it wouldn’t be of any concern to them because those laws wouldn’t change what they claim is the inevitable end result.
The truth is that libertarians don’t want the government to restrict corporations’ ability to exploit their overwhelming power to take the money and freedom of human beings because they know that such exploitation is actually extremely successful and that it does produce vast wealth which is what they want because they think that they will be the people on top, that they will be the winners controlling those choke points.
Libertarians Are Not Primarily Interested In The Most Freedom For The Largest Number Of People
For libertarians, human beings are entitled to freedom from interference by powerful organizations only to the extent that the individual is able to prevent the organization from taking away his/her freedom and wealth, and if the individual is too weak to resist the restrictions others impose on his/her freedom or the demands they make for their money, then those individuals don’t deserve to be free in the first place.
They want a country where they will be able to run some company that’s free to sell as crappy a product as they can get away with, pay their employees food-stamp wages, and make deals with their competitors to double the prices and divide up the market with the guarantee that the government will never be able to do anything to stop them from screwing their employees and customers to the maximum possible extent.
That’s the freedom they really care about.
Summary
So, here’s how it really is:
- The government is only one of many very powerful organizations that can threaten the freedom of human beings. It doesn’t matter which one of those organizations takes away the freedom of people who are too weak to protect it on their own. It only matters that someone stronger than you is interfering with your freedom.
- To put it differently, as far as you’re concerned, it matters far less exactly who shot you than the fact that you were shot.
- While the government can take away your freedom, the government also can and often does protect your freedom by stopping other powerful organizations from taking it away from you.
- If you think that the most freedom for the most human beings is important, then you need laws to prevent massive corporations, unions, institutions, and people from unreasonably interfering with the freedom and wealth of individuals.
- No one is absolutely free to do anything they want or refuse to do anything they want. Freedom is analog, not digital. Those who really value human freedom want a country where the largest number of humans have the highest reasonably possible level of freedom from interference by anyone.
- Freedom in your country should not be a zero-sum game where the more freedom a powerful organization has then the less freedom human beings dealing with it have.
- Our goal should be to craft a country that offers the most reasonably possible amount of freedom for the largest number of human beings rather than massive unlimited freedom for huge corporations and correspondingly little freedom for the ordinary people who have no choice but to deal with them.
— David Grace (www.DavidGraceAuthor.com)
