Freedom of choice: Just another thing we've lost?

I’ve been musing on some historical trends for the past few weeks in an effort to explain how America went from a country that fought communism to one that embraced socialism in the course of about 50 years.

Communism and socialism are not exactly the same thing, of course, but they are both based on governmental control of individual choices. At the macro scale, that means government ownership of industries, so that competition is restricted and private use of capital is subject to the discretion of the government rather than the free market. At the micro scale, it means that the government can tell each of us individually what kind of health insurance we can buy and ultimately what kind of hamburger we can eat.

For those of us who believe that choice is the essence of liberty, it is dismaying to watch our fellow Americans voluntarily — if unwittingly — cede power to the government over matters large and small.

I suppose it is not surprising, however. As Thomas Jefferson, the father of American liberty, wrote to Edward Carrington, in 1788, before the new Constitution had even been ratified: “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, & government to gain ground.”

Thus, today we have a Constitution that is seen as securing the national government’s power over all, whereas in Jefferson’s day the Constitution was seen as guaranteeing the people’s and states’ sovereignty over — and establishing just and proper restraints on — the national government.

It is with this in mind that the Tea Party has begun to speak of the tyranny of the federal government. It is also no coincidence that within the last two years, many Americans have noted and condemned the socialist tendencies that have beset our government at every level.

Remember, the American tradition of liberty enshrines the rights of the individual; the European tradition of socialism enshrines the rights of the state. The two traditions are thus mutually exclusive. The idea of democratic socialism is poppycock. It is doublespeak of the most pernicious kind for its goal is to enslave us under the banner of freedom. Democratic socialism is nothing more than free slavery — but do slaves who serve willingly have more OR LESS dignity that those who serve under duress?

Perhaps we have reached the point where everyday Americans have had enough, and are ready to take back control from the bureaucrats and entrenched officeholders who have used their power to restrict our freedom instead of protect it. I suspect more Americans have read the Constitution in the last two years that did so in the previous two decades. Thus we may have reached the point predicted by Jefferson when he wrote in 1789:

“Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government; whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied upon to set them to rights.”

Let’s hope so. But, as for now, I am still not sure that Jefferson was right. After all, things have gone wrong for a long time, and it always seems as though the American people resist the truth, perhaps because they have a misguided faith in the institutions of justice rather than in the source of justice.

But there is also a long line of truth-tellers who have encouraged Americans to remain faithful to the traditions and ideals that made America great. They are often belittled and besmirched like Barry Goldwater in his day or Glenn Beck in ours. They are sometimes nearly anonymous, known only by their signatures on letters to the editor in papers like the Daily Inter Lake. Sometimes they just make their point by asking a question.

That was the case with Inter Lake reader Dennis Gollsneider, who commissioned me to answer the question, “Why did the Magazine Publishers Association launch a nationwide Freedom of Choice campaign in 1968? What were they afraid of? What were the policies that they feared would be enacted?”

These simple questions, along with a couple of photocopied ads from Sports Afield in 1968, led me on a quest that challenged me to ultimately ask whether or not the policies that the Magazine Publishers were afraid of in 1968 had actually come to pass by 2010. It almost seemed as though the ads were a message in a time capsule that mysteriously predicted the mess that we face in America 42 years later.

One of the ads was addressed to automobile drivers. It said:

“Someone wants to change your world. He’s one of the new breed of social critics on the scene today. Intelligent, well-intentioned, he wants to do a little tinkering with the economy. Oh, he admits our free choice economy has produced a lot for us. In fact that’s his problem. He thinks maybe it’s produced too much. He thinks there are too many brands competing in the marketplace. He thinks Mrs. Smith is confused by too much free choice. His solution? Make both free competition and free choice a little less free. Let the government restrict the number of brands on the market — brands of just about anything presumably, from cars to cigarets to mouthwashes. And standardize their design and contents with grade labels. You know it’s too bad somebody didn’t think of that about 40 years ago. Then we’d all still be driving Model A’s. And that was a fun car.”

Wow, I thought when I read it. That sounds uncomfortably familiar.

Perhaps you don’t think so. After all, there are still plenty of brands of mouthwash, cigarettes and cars to choose from. Right? But let’s think about it.

Starting about 1968, the federal government started imposing new guidelines on manufacturers of cigarettes to tell them what they could and could not sell. The justification was obvious — to save people’s lives — but the effect was to reduce choices for consumers.

Same thing with cars. You can no longer buy a car without seatbelts. You can no longer buy a car without a catalytic converter. To a large extent, you can no longer buy a car that is cheap. That is because, the American auto industry is regulated to the point where to it is impossible to even include automobiles when talking about the “free market.” Virtually every aspect of the production and design of passenger cars is regulated by the federal government, leading to increased costs and in some cases increased death (for instance, lightweight cars meet federally imposed fuel-economy standards, but are demonstrably less safe).

Once you start to think about all the ways that the federal government has imposed itself into our lives since 1968, it becomes obvious that the Magazine Publishers Association lamentably failed in their campaign to rouse the public.

In fact, social critics, environmentalists and know-it-alls of every variety have done just what the Magazine Publishers warned us would happen, and not just at the federal level. This month, you even had the San Francisco City Council voting to ban McDonald’s Happy Meals in their not-so-fair city.

Why? Because the free toys might entice little Jimmy and Joanie to order a meal with too much sugar and calories. McDonald’s could still sell the meals, and they could still give away the toys, but not together. Talk about the Nanny State!

As a spokeswoman for McDonald’s said, “Parents tell us it’s their right and responsibility, not the government’s, ... to choose what’s right for their children.”

Well, maybe before 1968... but not anymore. In fact, the government’s job now seems to be entirely based on telling us what to do and how to do it. Want a mortgage? Check with the federal government to see what they have ordered banks to do in that industry. Want a credit card? Check with the federal government to see what you are allowed to have. Want health insurance? Better check with Uncle Sam.

In fact, the Freedom of Choice may soon be considered as outdated as the Ford Model A that the Magazine Publishers wrote about in 1968. But if we don’t have Freedom of Choice anymore, then what will happen to us in the future?

Perhaps we should refer to the second of the two ads that Dennis Gollsneider brought to my office last month. In it, Benjamin Franklin is quoted in his guise as Poor Richard, to the effect that laws written by the government to protect us from our own lavishness might actually spur us to laziness. The few choices we have, the less incentive we have to think for ourselves and to strive to make the right choice.

We are left at the mercy of government, which is not an institution known for either mercy or wisdom, which is an ingredient necessary to apply mercy justly.

Let the Magazine Publishers have the last word. After pointing out that Freedom of Choice had given us “the most dynamic economy in man’s history,” they warned, “Shouldn’t we be worried about how we tinker with the forces that have created all of this? The simple, troubling truth is, nobody knows for sure how far you can regulate our economy without damaging it.”

Well, now we know. The free market cannot exist under the enslavement of endless regulation. Something will eventually break. As Lincoln said of another form of slavery more than 150 years ago, “this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.”

But, unfortunately, whether Americans will shake off their economic yokes and return to the free state of their forefathers or simply adjust to “free slavery” is not yet known.

Frank Miele is the managing editor of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Mont.