(The below text version of the notes is for search purposes and convenience. See the PDF version for proper formatting such as bold, italics, etc., and graphics where applicable. Copyright: 2022 Retraice, Inc.)

Re45: Liberty and Equality Mean What?

Retraice^1

The Midterms Part 3: The United States is first about freedom, second about consequences (and therefore equality), because freedom is so inspiring, but it has no obvious solutions to luck and evil.

Air date: Wednesday, 9th Nov. 2022, 11:00 PM Eastern/US.

One word each

To cut through the complexity and subjectivity of understanding the two parties, Republicans and Democrats, reduce them to their two ideals, liberty and equality. The need to simplify is obvious when we consider how hard it can be to think clearly on the spot, e.g. when being ambushed by an opponent (or a comic^2).

The U.S. is definitely more `about' freedom. Evidence: o The Statue of Liberty (not Equality). o The inscription on the Statue: "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," (not yearning to breathe `equal').^3

But the U.S. is also known as "a government of laws, not of men",^4 i.e. being `about' equality before the law.

From here, two things seem obvious: The extreme versions of each ideal are incompatible; and if we don't define the terms, we'll often be talking past each other.

The incompatible argument:

(We owe this insight to Paulos (1995):^5) * PREMISE 1: Total liberty yields inequality. * PREMISE 2: Total equality yields illiberty. * CONCLUSION: `Total' is wrong. I.e. compromise is the real ideal (not a novel thought, of course).

The definitions argument:

* PREMISE 1: We decline to define our terms `liberty' and `equality' because its tedious to define terms. * PREMISE 2: We're using different definitions. * CONCLUSION 1: Our conversations will be stupid. * CONCLUSION 2: Our decisions will be stupid.

Definitions

Definitions from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) via Oxford Languages and Google: * Liberty: "the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views."^6 * Equality: "the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, and opportunities."^7 + Do we also mean equality before God or under the law? (Yes.)^8 + Do we also mean equality of outcomes or circumstances? (No.)

Two inherent problems with the ideal of freedom

"Responsibility is the price of freedom."^9 (not controversial amongst grown-ups). But those born to bad luck are not responsible for that; and there is evil in the world, and those who attack liberty, so "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."^10 Hence the need for equality. * Luck, specifically good luck (by genes, geography, adaptive fitness circumstances, etc.) and bad luck (same), are not deserved, and this bothers us. Does a person with Down's syndrome really enjoy freedom in a world built for people with twice the IQ? * Evil, specifically badness (e.g. being willing to benefit by slavery, tax complexity,^11 or being born or developed truly `evil'^12) is anti-society generally, whatever particular ideal you would espouse. Prisons and handcuffs are anti-liberty, and yet we depend on them to keep society livable for the majority of us.

(And, if we're talking about the ideals of the United States, obviously native genocide and slavery were anti-freedom, with plenty of `luck' and `evil' at play therein.)

There's no way to eliminate either of these consequences of taking freedom seriously. We must cope with them as bad weather, disease.

The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution:

Alan Dershowitz on the differences between the two:

"The Declaration of Independence is a lawless manifesto of rebellion. It relies on God, natural unwritten law, morality, `self-evident' propositions, and unalienable rights. The Constitution, on the other hand, is a relatively conservative legal document. Its most important structural innovation was the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances, which limited the power of any one branch. It sets out rules, structures, positive written laws, and a difficult process for amending."^13

So we look to the Declaration for our ideals, not the Constitution. Paragraph 2:

"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness--That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed...."^14

The tension between Republican and Democrats, then, can be seen as the tension between the fundamental idea of liberty, and the inescapable consequences of taking it seriously, which require, then, taking equality seriously in response.

_

References

Baumeister, R. F. (1999). Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty. Holt Paperbacks, revised ed. ISBN: 978-0805071658. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=9780805071658 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+9780805071658 https://lccn.loc.gov/96041940

de Becker, G. (1997). The Gift of Fear: And Other Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence. Dell / Random House. ISBN: 0440508835. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=0440508835 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+0440508835 https://lccn.loc.gov/96051051

Ernst Klee, V. R., Willi Dressen (Ed.) (1988). The Good Old Days: The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders. Konecky & Konecky. ISBN: 1568521332. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=1568521332 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+1568521332 https://lccn.loc.gov/91022086

Jefferson, T., Madison, J., Hamilton, A., Jay, J., Washington, G., & Dershowitz, A. (2019). The Constitution of the United States and The Declaration of Independence. Racehorse, Kindle ed. ISBN: 978-1631584831. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=9781631584831 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+9781631584831

Knowles, E. (Ed.) (1999). The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Oxford University Press, 5th ed. ISBN: 0198601735. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=0198601735 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+0198601735 https://lccn.loc.gov/99012096

Paulos, J. A. (1995). A Mathematician Reads The Newspaper. Basic Books. ISBN: 0465043623. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=0465043623 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+0465043623 https://lccn.loc.gov/94048206

Retraice (2022/03/07). Re17: Hypotheses to Eleven. retraice.com. https://www.retraice.com/segments/re17 Retrieved 17th Mar. 2022.

Salter, A. (2003). Predators. Basic Books. ISBN: 978-0465071732. Searches: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=978-0465071739 https://www.google.com/search?q=isbn+978-0465071739 https://lccn.loc.gov/2002015846

Footnotes

^1 https://www.retraice.com/retraice

^2 Consider `Jaywalking', the recurring bit by Jay Leno, or `street talk' on The Footy Show.

^3 The New Colossus, Emma Lazarus (1883), nps.gov, retrieved Nov. 9th, 2022.

^4 John Adams quoting James Harrington: "And what, according to Adams, were to be the principles at the heart of the American regime? The principles of nature. Adams famously called a republic `a government of laws, not of men.' He was quoting James Harrington. The context is worth noting: `Empire of laws, not of men,' Harrington wrote, is `according to ancient prudence.' In contrast, `modern prudence' counsels that `some man, or some few men, subject a city or a nation, and rule it according to his or their private interest: which, because the laws in such cases are made according to the interest of a man, or of some few families, may be said to be the empire of men, and not of laws.' The empire of laws is concerned with right; the empire of men, with power." A Government of Laws, Not of Men: John Adams feared aristocracy, but recognized it was essential for the good of the nation, Richard Samuelson, Claremont Review of Books, Fall 2017, retrieved Nov. 11th, 2022.

^5 Pp. 7-8.

^6 OED via Oxford Languages and Google, retrieved Nov. 9th. 2022.)

^7 OED via Oxford Languages and Google, retrieved Nov. 9th. 2022.)

^8 Consider Milton Friedman: "`Liberty' is part of the definition of equality, not in conflict with it. Equality before God--personal equality--is important precisely because people are not identical. Their different values, their different tastes, their different capacities will lead them to want to lead very different lives. Personal equality requires respect for their right to do so, not the imposition on them of someone else's values or judgment. Jefferson had no doubt that some men were superior to others, that there was an elite. But that did not give them the right to rule others." What Does "Created Equal" Mean?, Milton Friedman, hoover.org, an excerpt from his books Milton Friedman on Freedom (Hoover, 2017) and, originally, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement (Harvest, 1990), retrieved Nov. 10th, 2022.

^9 Usually attributed to Elbert Hubbard in his A Message to Garcia (gutenberg.org), 1914, retrieved Nov 10th, 2022, an epigraph that sometimes appeared before the essay (and more often didn't): "To act in absolute freedom and at the same time know that responsibility is the price of freedom is salvation."

^10 This line is often attributed to Thomas Jefferson, wrongly. The full sentence, from a speech (Jul. 10th, 1790) by the Irish judge John Philpot Curran is: "The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt." Knowles (1999) p. 248.

^11 I.e. using the letter of the law to violate the spirit of the law.

^12 Salter (2003); Baumeister (1999); de Becker (1997); Ernst Klee (1988). See also Retraice (2022/03/07) on H9: Darkness.

^13 Jefferson et al. (2019) loc. 22 of 576.

^14 Jefferson et al. (2019) loc. 509 of 576.