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Freedom Watch
What’s Your Metric?
How do you measure freedom?
HOW DO YOU WATCH FREEDOM? How do you watch it grow? How do you watch it shrink? What’s the metric? What’s your metric? What do you think the metrics of your fellow citizens are? If you have no idea what their metric is, how do you talk to them about freedom with any sense of urgency?
Milton Friedman’s metric was the percentage of GDP spent by government.
Friedman said we could not be truly free in a country where the government at all levels took and spent 30 percent of GDP. In Obamaland in 2009 government at all levels will spend 40 percent of GDP (almost the level of World War II). That will go up, way up, if the programs Obama is pushing get enacted. Perhaps to 50 percent.
But is that a valid metric, at least for most people? It’s true that government takes more of our wealth than it used to, but it’s also true that we can buy a lot more than we used to with what’s left over. As Bill Buckley used to note, you can buy all of Beethoven for 10 dollars. How much more do you need? How do you measure wealth anyway? To what extent is wealth a surrogate metric for freedom?
Another way to measure freedom, or lack of freedom, is by counting the pages in (or weighing?) the Federal Register or the Code of Federal Regulations, where the regulations that govern virtually everything we do every day are listed. It’s an imperfect measure because a one-page rule can be as burdensome as a 500-page rule. Whatever the number, it will go up, and probably dramatically, under President Obama.
A better measure is the cost of regulations. Federal regulations impose a burden of more than a trillion dollars on the economy, almost as much as total federal income tax receipts. And of course, states regulate too. How free can you be when there are a trillion dollars’ worth of instructions telling you what to do each day? Slow down. Stop smoking. Don’t eat fat. Get off the couch. Put down that soft drink.
Freedom House defines freedom as “the opportunity to act spontaneously in a variety of fields outside the control of the government and other centers of potential domination.” Quick: name a field that is outside the control of government?
How do Franklin Roosevelt’s four freedoms (freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear) fare on Freedom House’s measure? Not well.
Congress and the Supreme Court have substantially curtailed freedom of speech where it counts most: in political campaigns. And the Supreme Court has greatly limited freedom of religion with decades of rulings that prohibit people from praying or displaying religious symbols in a variety of circumstances.
Roosevelt and the progressives, and their heirs-today we call them (cover the children’s ears, please) liberals-schemed to free people from want and fear by creating welfare programs. Today that array of programs, not just Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, but their cousins, state and municipal pension programs, among others, have become unsustainable, and people, especially the “little people” who pay taxes, are afraid. They see an aging workforce and a depleted tax base, and contemplate the fiscal ruin of the state and personal want in their future.
Perhaps freedom is just a state of mind. In that case, we might measure how our public figures value freedom by seeing how often they talk about it.
In President Obama’s February 24 quasi-state of the union speech to Congress, he mentioned freedom only once. In his inauguration speech, he mentioned freedom only three times. In his Election Night victory speech, he didn’t mention freedom at all.
In Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural address he mentioned freedom eight times. In his first official state of the union address in 1982 (1981 was a quasistate of the union address that was called in February and was about only economic recovery) he mentioned freedom six times. And in his acceptance speech in 1984 in Dallas he mentioned freedom six times.
In his D-Day address this year President Obama mentioned freedom only once. President Bush mentioned freedom four times in his 2004 speech marking the 60th anniversary of D-Day. President Reagan mentioned freedom four times on the 40th anniversary of D-Day.
Are those imperfect measures? Perhaps.
But then, what’s your metric?
Letter to the Editor View all comments (37) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Daniel Oliver
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http://spectator.org/archives/2009/09/02/whats-your-metric
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Darin| 9.2.09 @ 7:04AM
Freedom means you are responsible for yourself. If you do well, you keep what you earn and do with it what you choose. If you do poorly, you face the consequences.
We are turning freedom upside down. Those who do well have what they earn taken from them. Those who do poorly, regardless of the situation, are not required to face the consequences.
If I do well and am free, I can choose to give a portion of my wealth and time to help others. Or I can choose not to do so. That choice is no longer available.
If I'm struggling but trying my best and not doing stupid things (gambling, drugs, etc.), there are those in our society who would gladly help me. If I'm doing stupid things and people choose not to help me, I have no one to blame but myself. That difference is no longer being followed.
Big J| 9.2.09 @ 8:09AM
It's an interesting and very deep question, Mr. Oliver, and one that definitely needs to be asked.
According to the dope-smokin' hippies, "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose." This philosophy has permeated our culture for over 35 years, and I fear it has become "the metric" by which said hippies are governing. I couldn't disagree more.
Obviously, everyone has their own metric. As for me,.....
Freedom means being able to take advantage of an opportunity that comes your way - unimpeded and within the bounds of morality. In other words, no other individual's freedoms are infringed upon.
Freedom means being able to worship as you and your creator see fit (or not to worship, if you so choose). Again, it cannot infringe on other's freedoms.
Freedom means being allowed to have the means to defend yourself, family and friends against others who would do harm.
Freedom means the ability to speak and / or write what is on your mind, with the same restriction in place above.
If Janis Joplin had it right, then be afraid. Be very afraid. The looters in Washington aim to make sure none of us have anything left to loose.
Nyfarmer| 9.2.09 @ 9:03AM
My Dad-who was from the 'Old' country-instructed us that "Freedom is to do what you ought to do."
Tim| 9.2.09 @ 9:41AM
"Who can endure a doctrine which would allow only dentists to say whether our teeth were aching, only cobblers to say whether our shoes hurt us, and only governments to tell us whether we were being well governed?"
--C.S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost
Tim| 9.2.09 @ 9:48AM
If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will...then we may take it it is worth paying."
--C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity
Bud| 9.2.09 @ 9:50AM
Some measures -
Financial Freedom: ( 365.25 - DaysT)/365.25
Regulatory Freedom: (365.25 - DaysR)/365.25
DaysT - days per year spent paying taxes for any level of government. For 2009, it is estimated that the cost of government was paid by the average household on Aug 12 (day 224), so this measure would be for 38.67% for 2009. [Middle Age serfs got a much better deal on balance.]
DaysR - days per year spent filling out government forms or complying with other regulations.
Michael L. Hauschild| 9.2.09 @ 10:35AM
Freedoms just another word for accidental death from heroin. Anybody notice that the Motor City Madman is still alive and kicking.
sean| 9.2.09 @ 11:46AM
The PC/Obama Cultist crowd believe in freedom. They believe you are free to do whatever they approve of.
I think otherwise and am willing to fight (literally if necessary) for what I believe is real freedom. Oh and has been nice to see Ted on the networks showing what clean living can lead to. Namely good health, a working mind and a happy family.
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L. Ross| 9.2.09 @ 3:50PM
Personally, my freedom vs government battle centers around two things. Taxes and the police state. Boating in California is a venture deep into a police state (it isn't unusual to see 3 police boats simultaneously), and taxes are of course taxes. Here in California they want $400 registration fee for a 1978 pickup that won't be driven on the road. Trust me, that isn't freedom.
Teflon93 | 9.2.09 @ 3:56PM
Freedom = the number of Americans who vote against the Autocrats on the 1st Tuesday in November during election years.
Tony in Central PA| 9.2.09 @ 4:17PM
There are 395 new regulations in Obama's health care proposals. How many regulations will this legislation nullify ?
" Freedom is slavery ". George Orwell.
Carl Cull| 9.2.09 @ 7:37PM
Being free is making a dollar and keeping one hundred cents. To the extent that equation doesn't fit, you are either a slave or a ward of the state.
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Sue| 9.2.09 @ 11:03PM
Freedom is living in a society where you respect one another's right to exist and obtain property for his personal use and are not afraid of another person and what they may do to you.
Freedom is understanding the society you live in and having the ability to adapt to changes and know how to remain compliant with the rules and regulations; in other words, if it gets so complicated that no one can understand it, you're all "up a creek without a paddle" and tipping over may result in drownings.
John Hamilton| 9.3.09 @ 9:14AM
Pure freedom is anarchy. But such leads to the loss of freedom of many, perhaps most, maybe all. Freedom, then, is the most limited amount of government that reasonably protects the rights of each individual to chose and do with his life as he will. On the spectrum between anarchy and totalinarian communism, the greatest freedom is found a lot closer to the first than the second.
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Kurt| 9.22.09 @ 9:28PM
Defining freedom or tyranny is like defining pornagraphy, one can't until they see or feel it.
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Sean Tritter| 11.8.10 @ 5:28PM
This is a very interesting question.
I guess being free means to be able to do what you want, as long as you respect your fellow citizens. In any case, one thing that's not usually taken into account is the violence represented by poverty, since it takes away our chances to choose our own future. Then again, President Obama's plans, may be a bit too much.
Sean Ritter
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