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The Mistake of Trade-Off Between Equality and Personal Freedoms in Today’s Politics
Milton Friedman once asserted, “A society which aims for equality before liberty will end up with neither equality nor liberty.” The statement reflects how society generates fundamental resistance when implementing equality policies that restrict individual freedoms. The principle achieves particular relevance today because we observe a continuous deterioration of freedom against equality in modern global politics.
Present-day trends in the United States and the United Kingdom show how choosing one principle above the other leads to specific effects. Under new legislation in Michigan and Idaho and Montana state governments attempt to persuade the Supreme Court to invalidate the Obergefell v. Hodges decision which in 2015 legalized same-sex marriage across the U.S., ensuring equal rights.
Obergefell v. Hodges has sparked a fresh conflict regarding the interaction between social preferences and personal liberties because the court issued a decision to legalize gay marriage. These policy makers from various states stand against the Obergefell decision because they think it represents a harmful turn toward American legal development and objects to violating personal choice to achieve their notion of untenable equality. Their legalistic position does not recognize their efforts to…
