Enjoying and Expanding Liberty

Liberty is the fourth of “the 4-Ls,” and this post is the last of the five-part series that I started on March 9—and it is not completely coincidental that I have written this article in Liberty (Mo.) where my wife and I have lived since 2005.**

The school song of Seinan Gakuin, the large school system in Fukuoka City, Japan, where I served for 36 years (1968~2004) as a university professor and the last eight of those years as Chancellor, contains the Japanese words for Life, Love, and Light, the first three of the 4-Ls.

But I thought/think Liberty needed/needs to be emphasized also. 

In my May 10 post on Light, I linked light to truth—and then truth is linked to Jesus’ words about freedom/liberty in John 8:32: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (CEV). And there are other important words about freedom/liberty in the New Testament.

According to Luke 4:18, in the synagogue of Nazareth, Jesus read these words from Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me…To proclaim liberty to the captives…To set at liberty those who are oppressed.” Then Galatians 5:1 says, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free” (NKJV).

Since I was emphasizing the 4-Ls at Seinan Gakuin where about 98% of the students and more than half of the faculty and staff were not Christians, I didn’t talk/write a lot about these Bible verses. But I did regularly emphasize the close connection of liberty to the light of truth.

Also, I always talked about liberty being accompanied by responsibility, emphasizing that true liberty doesn’t mean freedom to do as one pleases; it is not a license for self-centeredness. Liberty means we are not enslaved by another person or by the power of any ideology (“ism”).

There is both negative and positive liberty, and both are important. Negative liberty means freedom from, but positive liberty means freedom for—and emphasis on the former should include stress on the importance of the latter.

Serious problems arise when only negative liberty is emphasized and liberty is used in inappropriate ways. For example, liberty is misused when it means “free speech for me but not for thee.”*¹ In this connection, consider these limited and inferior uses of liberty/freedom in the U.S. now.

◈ The “Freedom Caucus” in the U.S. Congress. According to Wikipedia, this U.S. House caucus was formed by Republican Representatives in January 2015 and “is generally considered to be the most conservative and furthest-right Congressional bloc.”

◈ “Freedom Summer” in Florida. As part of what Florida Governor DeSantis calls by that name, his Transportation Department has declared that only the colors red, white and blue can be used to light up bridges across the state. (For what that implies, see this May 23 Washington Post article.)

◈ Liberty University in Virginia. Jerry Falwell’s university changed its name to Liberty Baptist College in 1976 and to Liberty University in 1985. A Washington Post March 2015 article was titled, “Virginia’s Liberty University: A mega-college and Republican presidential stage.”

Liberty, nonetheless, is an important traditional value of the USA. The Declaration of Independence speaks of the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” And since 1831 Americans have sung about their nation being the “sweet land of liberty.”  

Even though the scope of those thought to have the unalienable right of liberty in 1776 or 1831—or even in 1942 when the Pledge of Allegiance was officially adopted—was much too narrow, it has increasingly been recognized as meaning liberty and justice for all.*²

On January 6, 1941, President Roosevelt delivered what is known as the Four Freedoms speech, declaring that people "everywhere in the world" ought to have freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

These are freedoms that we all should be able to enjoy and seek to expand. And the liberty expressed in those four freedoms is still badly needed in the world today.

Further, we citizens of the USA must work energetically to preserve those (and other) freedoms in the light of the Christian nationalists who are seeking theocracy and of the Republican candidate for President, whose speeches (past and present) evidence racism, xenophobia, and a trend toward authoritarianism (fascism?).

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*¹ My wife and I moved to Liberty about three months after our marriage in 1957 and enrolled as students in William Jewell College, from which we graduated 65 years ago this month. We lived in Liberty again during the 1976-77 academic year. Then we bought our retirement home in Liberty and have never regretted our choice in the least. Somewhat tongue in cheek, I have sometimes said, slightly altering Paul Revere’s famous words, Give me Liberty until my death.

*² These words, harking back to 1798, are the title of the editorial in the March/April 2022 issue of Liberty magazine, a Seventh-day Adventist publication established in 1906. Please take a look at this article if you want to learn more about the context and meaning of those words.

*³ The U.S. Pledge of Allegiance was written by Francis Bellamy in 1892. The original version was later expanded, but from the beginning, it ended with the words “with Liberty and Justice for all.” For more about this, see my August 30, 2021, blog post about Bellamy (here).

Note: It is also problematic when liberty is conflated with libertarianism. That political philosophy, which over-emphasizes negative liberty, strongly values individual freedom and is skeptical about the justified scope of government, especially the federal government. 

Liberally Criticizing Libertarianism: The Case of Sen. Rand Paul

In the summer of 1959, June and I (with our young son) moved from Missouri to Kentucky where we lived for the next seven years. We soon became quite fond of Kentucky and most of the Kentuckians we came to know—there are always exceptions—and we still are.

However, two of my least favorite U.S. Senators now are the two from Kentucky.

Opposing Libertarianism

Although there are many negative things I could say about Sen. Mitch McConnell, who became a Kentucky Senator way back in 1985, this post is mostly about the junior Senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul, who was first elected to that post in 2010.

Please note: I am not criticizing Sen. Paul as a person. He is probably a fine man in many ways. He has long been an active member of a Presbyterian church and of Lions Club International.

But I oppose many of Paul’s ideas and political positions. Specifically, I am critical of his libertarianism, which seems to be the basis for his political views.

Libertarianism, according to Britannica.com, is the “political philosophy that takes individual liberty to be the primary political value.”

Two weeks ago (on Aug. 4), FoxNews.com (here) published an opinion piece by Sen. Paul. He forcefully spoke out against mandates for covid-19 vaccinations and the wearing of masks.

In his strongly-worded article, Sen. Paul implored his readers to “choose freedom” and declared, “We don’t have to accept the mandates, lockdowns, and harmful policies of the petty tyrants and feckless bureaucrats.” And, specifically, he criticized “Petty Tyrant Pelosi.”

This wrongheaded libertarianism, even when not so labeled, is prevalent among numerous Republican politicians. As eminent columnist Eugene Robinson wrote in an August 5 opinion piece, “Too many Republicans are taking covid-19’s side in the fight against the pandemic.”

Robinson asserts, “Public enemy number one is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis,” who “has signed legislation barring local governments from imposing covid-19 restrictions and prohibiting businesses from requiring that patrons be vaccinated.”

Kearney protester

Further, “DeSantis has taken the position that pandemic public health measures are an intolerable assault on personal freedom.” This libertarian position is the same as Sen. Paul’s and seems to be “a message many rank-and-file Republicans apparently welcome.”

And this libertarian view, even when not recognized as such, is seen in local protests across the country. For example, in the small town of Kearney, Mo., about 15 minutes from where I live, there was a contentious school board meeting with some parents vociferously protesting mandatory masking.

Advocating Liberty

As you regular readers of this blog know, I have long advocated four foundational words beginning with the letter L: Life, Love, Light, and Liberty. But in writing/talking about liberty, I have regularly linked it with responsibility.

Liberty must always be tied to responsibility, so perhaps libertarianism would be all right if accompanied by an emphasis on responsibilitarianism. (Yes, the latter is a word used in several sites found by a Google search.)

It must also be recognized that there are variants of libertarianism: not all libertarians are as objectionable as Sen. Paul. But, in general, libertarians seek to live with freedom as individuals without external restrictions, especially by the government.

Even though they may not be Republicans, as Sen. Paul is, most libertarians agree with Pres. Reagan: “Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” A few years ago, that was a basic position of the Tea Party Movement, of which Sen. Paul was a part.

But I agree with Pastor Preston Clegg, who (here) wrote an August 10 opinion piece titled “Freedom Without Responsibility is Moral Adolescence.” Clegg asserts,

People are—quite literally—protesting what would save their lives and cheering their own death, all in the name of liberation from what they perceive to be an overreaching government that is advocating for nothing more than our safety from a deadly pandemic.

Such protesters are egged on by people like Sen. Paul, so that is one strong reason I liberally criticize libertarianism and ardently advocate liberty with responsibility.