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The Need to Push Back

The left in the United States frequently complain about the loss of our freedoms and the shredding of the Constitution by the Bush administration. However, the most significant gradual loss of our freedoms is due to causes other than the Bush administration. In order stop this erosion and regain our freedoms, we need first to acknowledge the true sources concerning loss of freedom and then to push back against the sources to restore balance. These sources include excessive laws and regulations, excessive resort to courts, political correctness, loss of civility and increased selfishness and misplaced religious tolerance.

Some of the causes of these excesses are the continual effort of politicians to be re-elected, the constant push to compromise, the unwillingness to give up any advantage which might have been gained through some government program or regulation and the constant effort to gain some advantage through government regulation.

Excessive Laws and Regulations. At every level of government we have excessive laws and regulations as the result of gradual excessive reliance upon government for all of our solutions. As discussed below, this phenomenon is related to both political correctness and the loss of civility and increased selfishness.

One sterling example of this excess in laws and regulations is, of course, our tax laws. The Internal Revenue Code has over time become a means of doing much more than raising money for government. We attempt to control behavior, encourage different types of investment, encourage activities which some believe need incentives to be carried forward and redistribute wealth and income. None of these goals are proper use of tax power. Taxes should be to raise money for the functioning of government and nothing else.

There are similar excesses at all levels of government. One of the areas in which we see this the most in localities is in the area of land use planning and zoning. In my community (Albemarle County, Virginia) there was recently a perfect example of the reason why we have this constant increase in regulation and excessive resort to government. In 2006 there were three proposals intended to limit use of land for residential and commercial purposes outside of designated growth areas. One of the proposals dealt with mountaintop protection. A compromise was reached, and those who conceded some freedoms to reach a compromise stated at a public hearing that they could live with the restrictions if all of the portions of the proposal were enacted. Others who had wanted greater restrictions stated that the compromise was a good start. In short, those who, for their own benefit, wanted to limit the freedoms of others were not satisfied with the compromise and were going to push for ever increasing regulation once the compromise to which they had agreed was enacted.

Thus, it is essential, if we are to protect our freedoms, that we push back and try to eliminate some laws and regulations, rather than just accepting more and more controls in the name of compromise. Compromise is not necessarily what makes our society work well as some would have us believe.

Excessive Resort to Courts. People resort to the courts all too often for addressing supposed grievances which in times past would have been handled personally or through legislation. The situations which have the greatest impact, or are at least the most notorious, are efforts to have various political preferences be proclaimed to be constitutional rights. Though the right to abortion to some extent is accepted as now being protected by the Constitution, there is no such right in the Constitution. The Supreme Court's having found such a right was pure fantasy. If you doubt, I recommend that you read the decision in Roe v. Wade. There are other instances where rights are found from time to time, such as the rights of homosexuals to do what they want in private. While I agree that such activity should not be criminalized, it is not a right that is to be found in the Constitution. To say that there is such a right in the Constitution is essentially to say that the government has no control over what happens in a person's home. Yet we do not allow one lawful inhabitant of a home to murder another lawful inhabitant of that home; we do not allow pedophilia in home; and do not allow similar types of crimes in a home, even if such involve consensual behavior. One cannot reasonably say that private consensual sexual relations among adults are protected, but other private consensual activities are not protected. That is not a rational constitutional line, though it is a rational legislative distinction.

There are more subtle ways in which resort to the courts have caused us to lose our freedoms. Excessive tort litigation in many areas has caused loss of freedoms. John Edwards and others have made their fortunes using junk science in the courts. Some of the areas where this has occurred are breast implants, childhood vaccines and asbestos. The claims regarding childhood vaccines causing autism have never been proved, and in fact from what I have read there have been no studies which have found any correlation. The claimed problems with breast implants have all been proved to be false. The claims in these two areas have caused bona fide products to be taken off the market or restricted thus lessening our freedoms and creating unnecessary concerns. In both instances there have also been costs absorbed by companies which get passed on to individuals. While asbestos is different in that there are known legitimate health problems, much of the litigation involving asbestos has been fraudulent enriching attorneys and their captive doctors and bankrupting companies and hurting consumers.

Another subtle area in which excessive resort to the courts causes problems is in the area of securities litigation. While there have been substantial improvements in this area with the securities litigation laws passed by Congress several years ago, companies have incurred substantial costs in dealing with these suits and also in trying to provide what are otherwise unneeded procedures to ward off such litigation. Overreaction to company problems, such as Enron, have also led to unnecessary legislation. Except for a few unnecessarily expensive requirements for involvement of accountants, most of what was supposedly done by the Sarbanes Oxley Act could have easily been accomplished or addressed under the 1933 Securities Act and the 1934 Securities Exchange Act. Such would also have been done at less cost to the companies whose securities are publicly traded.

Finally, much of our medical malpractice litigation is specious and results in loss of freedom. Like it or not, people are different. If such were not the case, then simple medical procedures would not have small percentages of failures. The legal profession has lead people to believe that, if a procedure has not been effective, then it must have been malpractice and not an individual idiosyncrasy. While such is true in some instances, in many instances such is not the case. The loss of freedom occurs when doctors stop practicing certain specialties in some areas because of the high cost of insurance.

Pushing back in this area will require the cooperation of everyone. People need to be less willing to sue any time they are not completely satisfied. Lawyers need to be less willing to take questionable cases and to abuse the system for the sake of making money. Judges need to be willing to throw out meritless cases. Politicians need to avoid taking advantage of current crises to pass additional unnecessary laws to look as if they are seriously addressing a matter.

Political Correctness. Tolerance has been carried to extremes so that in fact people are losing freedom rather than gaining it. Supposedly tolerance is to add to our freedoms, at least for some. However, in the process of encouraging tolerance of all lifestyles and actions, we have passed laws and propounded speech and behavior codes which limit the freedoms of those who disagree with others. Most of us are aware of some of the problems on college campuses with people being brought before various committees because of supposed hate speech. Students and faculty are in some instances required to take special class to become sensitive to the concerns of others. In England the situation has become extreme resulting in some ministers being chastised for preaching what are the precepts of their religion. There have been a few similar problems in local areas in our country where there are committees who have responsibilities regarding "hate" speech. The problem with these codes is that they restrict legitimate debate and discussion of different opinions. They also usually punish only one side.

We need to rid ourselves of these different codes and attitudes involving political correctness. While at times some people will be unreasonably coarse, such can normally be addressed through the civilizing influence of social ostracism. People need to be more thick skinned and less willing to show their anger at every little slight. For those who cannot learn to accept that not everyone will say things which they find appealing, we need to ignore their rantings and stop giving them any credibility.

Loss of Civility and Increased Selfishness. These two are related not just to each other, but also to political correctness and excessive laws and regulations. Increased selfishness and less concern about others obviously leads to loss of civility. Courtesy is not seen as important, but people will do what they can to get what they want when they want it. Some examples of the results of these two characteristics are running red lights, road rage and butting in line. These may seem small, but they gradually lead to a less pleasant society.

Excessive regulation has some relationship to these matters. As we encourage selfishness and political correctness, we discourage any sort of judgment from society about what is and what is not acceptable behavior. Once we lose this civilizing aspect of social ostracism, then we attempt to enforce some minimum level of behavior through more laws, many of them criminal. As we have more laws and regulations in areas where we once counted on a sense of responsibility, the laws become more difficult to enforce. As the laws become more difficult to enforce, then there is less respect for the laws, and the standard for some becomes do what you want, even if it is illegal because you probably won't be caught.

We need to be less selfish and more civil. The more we do this and take responsibility upon ourselves, the greater freedom we shall have because we shall have less need for some laws and regulations.

Misplaced Religious Tolerance. This subject is also related political correctness, but is treated separately because it has such a strong bearing on many of our current problems with terrorism. Religious tolerance is essential. It is, after all, our first freedom in the Bill of Rights. However, we need to be honest about what is involved in some religions. We have been willing to accept limits to religious tolerance in areas involving fringe religions, such as with Reverend Moon. However, we need to be willing to do the same with more prevalent religions if they in fact undermine the very freedom which allows them to flourish in this country and other similar democracies. I refer specifically to some of what is accepted with Islam. We spend much time trying not to offend Muslims by calling Islam a peaceful religion and by allowing practices which we would not allow with people of other religions. Do you think a Baptist taxi driver who truly believed that people should not drink would be permitted to keep his job if he refused to give a ride to someone who had a bottle of liquor? Yet we tolerate this with Muslim taxi drivers. Do you believe that we would give a pass to a Catholic bishop who called for the death of someone who had written some literature which denounced the Catholic Church? Yet we do this with Muslim clerics.

We need to understand that, even if we do not like some Christian religions, it is the Judeo-Christian background which has gradually been the source of freedom, and that Islam seeks to undermine this very freedom. Tolerance is fine until we begin to tolerate only the intolerant in an effort not to offend them.