Read Whose Freedom?: The Battle over America's Most Important Idea Online
Authors: George Lakoff
Our honor requires that we stay in Iraq despite the fact that the war is going wrong. Read: A moral authority (a political strict father) would lose his authority if he showed weakness. The whole plan of being a moral authority to the world would be shot. How can we expand democracy (that is, free-market freedom) to the whole world if it won’t even work in the first place we try? If we leave Iraq, it would shatter the whole neoconservative ideal.
Yet because we have acted in the great liberating tradition of this nation, tens of millions have achieved their freedom.
The Iraqis are already free. Hmmm …
Because the war has not been going well—there were not nearly enough soldiers, sent in without adequate training or equipment—recruitment has been off. Getting more recruits is a high administration priority. The frame has been set up so that the Iraq War is not recognized as a choice Bush made well before 9/11, nor as an invasion of a country showing no threat to America, nor as in the interest of American corporations in securing oil. Instead, fighting in Iraq—and perhaps dying or getting maimed for life—is put forth as an ideal, as a sacrifice and a service to one’s country (“duty,” “allegiance”), rather than as a sacrifice to a neoconservative experiment. Democracy as religion returns: “evil is real … serve in a cause … larger than yourself, and in your days … in a world moving toward liberty …” Notice the teleology: The world is inevitably “moving toward liberty.”
In a fundamentalist context, that is God’s plan and it is our job—our duty—to carry it out. Neoconservative foreign policy is a religious mission.
Some have shown their devotion to our country in deaths that honored their whole lives—and we will always honor their names and their sacrifice.
All Americans have witnessed this idealism, and some for the first time. I ask our youngest citizens to believe the evidence of your eyes. You have seen duty and allegiance in the determined faces of our soldiers. You have seen that life is fragile, and evil is real, and courage triumphs. Make the choice to serve in a cause larger than your wants, larger than yourself—and in your days you will add not just to the wealth of our country, but to its character.
America has need of idealism and courage, because we have essential work at home—the unfinished work of American freedom. In a world moving toward liberty, we are determined to show the meaning and promise of liberty.
“In your days” is religious language. “Add not just to the wealth of our country” refers to America’s economic interests. “But to its character” refers to the conservative moral vision, in which character is the internal discipline needed both to be moral and to prosper. The language of American idealism has been merged with the language of conservatism. The metaphor is clear: America is not just a person. America is a conservative! And conservatism is idealistic and serves American ideals.
At this point, the radical conservative economic agenda can be discussed as an example of American idealism. “Economic independence” is based on the idea that government social programs give people things they have not earned, thus making them dependent on the government for handouts and taking
away their discipline, which is necessary to be economically independent and self-reliant. “Independence” is freedom from dependence on government programs. The idea behind strict father economics is to force everybody to sink or swim, assuming anybody worth anything will swim—and we don’t, and shouldn’t, care about those who sink. They lack discipline, which shows they’re not capable of acting morally, and so they are not worthy and have no dignity.
Those who are newly independent, freed from dependence on government programs like Social Security and Medicare, will get new discipline and, with it, dignity and the security of being able to fend for oneself. They will be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and not have to “[labor] on the edge of subsistence.”
In America’s ideal of freedom, citizens find the dignity and security of economic independence, instead of laboring on the edge of subsistence. This is the broader definition of liberty that motivated the Homestead Act, the Social Security Act, and the G.I. Bill of Rights.
This goes beyond merely political liberty. It is better than the Homestead Act, the Social Security Act, and the G.I. Bill of Rights. Those were government programs that gave you things—land, a secure retirement, a college education—so that you could use the common wealth to work for a better life. Bush reframes the motivation behind those programs. Rather than uses of the common wealth for the common good, they become opportunities to end dependence on government. Bush offers you freedom from dependence on government, “a broader definition of liberty.” The tens of millions of working Americans who cannot even afford health care will now be made free—free to get their own land, secure their own retirement, and pay for their own college education and that of their children.
And now we will extend this vision by reforming great institutions to serve the needs of our time.
In radical conservative parlance, “reforming” means “destroying.” Translation: We want to get rid of Social Security and Medicare.
To give every American a stake in the promise and future of our country, we will bring the highest standards to our schools,
But since funds for social programs like education are being cut, there will be no funds to allow schools to meet those standards.
and build an ownership society. We will widen the ownership of homes and businesses, retirement savings and health insurance—preparing our people for the challenges of life in a free society. By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear, and make our society more prosperous and just and equal.
The “challenges of life in a free society” means that you are free of safety nets. Every citizen will become “an agent of his or her own destiny.” To meet those challenges as an agent of your own destiny, you will have to become a successful entrepreneur and businessperson. A great many people do not have those skills and so will not be able to meet those challenges. They will be impoverished, but that is just.
Radical conservatives believe that eliminating safety nets and other government programs will actually give people the incentive to work harder, accomplish more, and become better entrepreneurs and investors. There is no concept of the cheap labor trap here. No idea that many, many people have skills other than
entrepreneurial skill to bring to society. And there is an assumption that people are infinitely flexible and will—and should—all be entrepreneurs and savvy investors.
Next, the right’s agenda for strict father morality—and its concept of character.
In America’s ideal of freedom, the public interest depends on private character—on integrity, and tolerance toward others, and the rule of conscience in our own lives. Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self.
That line again. The “governing of the self” is self-discipline, developed in strict father families through punishment when a child does wrong. You survive by internal discipline, called “character”—an “edifice” that is “upstanding” and “strong.”
That edifice of character is built in families,
Strict father families …
supported by communities with standards,
that is, strict father moral standards you had better meet if you want community support,
and sustained in our national life by the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, the words of the Koran, and the varied faiths of our people.
and morality in our national life exists only because of religion, because obedience to God guarantees our freedom.
Americans move forward in every generation by reaffirming all that is good and true that came before—ideals of
justice and conduct that are the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Progress is possible only by following fixed moral truths—absolute right versus absolute wrong, now and forever.
Finally, there is the implicit agenda for conservative in-group compassion. “Freedom” from government programs and safety nets—”the challenge of living in a free society” and being “an agent of [one’s] own destiny”—means that those who are weak, or aged, or disabled, or maimed, or injured will not have any right to basic sustenance and human dignity just because they are human beings. Instead, they will be thrown on the “mercy” of others—the kindness of strangers.
In America’s ideal of freedom, the exercise of rights is ennobled by service, and mercy, and a heart for the weak.
The ideal radical conservative shows his or her “nobility” by “service, mercy, and a heart for the weak.” That’s not much of a guarantee for the weak. Indeed, he is not addressing the weak.
Liberty for all does not mean independence from one another. Our nation relies on men and women who look after a neighbor and surround the lost with love.
This is the ideal conservative community with occasional compassion for the worthy poor, where you “look after a neighbor,” but not where the neighbor, by working all his or her life, has earned and deserves Social Security and Medicare.
Americans, at our best, value the life we see in one another, and must always remember that even the unwanted have worth.
Outlaw abortion of unwanted children, but even though they “have worth,” don’t provide guaranteed pre-or postnatal care, or medical insurance, or food, or shelter, and don’t protect them from environmental harms, or leave future generations a healthy economy free of debt. If you did, they wouldn’t be “free” of government social programs.
Finally, there is the unity pitch:
These questions that judge us also unite us, because Americans of every party and background, Americans by choice and by birth, are bound to one another in the cause of freedom.
We should come together and unite behind him, because we “are bound to one another in the cause of freedom.”
We have known divisions, which must be healed to move forward in great purposes—and I will strive in good faith to heal them. Yet those divisions do not define America. We felt the unity and fellowship of our nation when freedom came under attack, and our response came like a single hand over a single heart.
What brought us together on 9/11? Not empathy. Not care. Not a sense of identity with the people on those planes and in those towers. Not a sense of a common threat, or a common loss. No. “Like a single hand over a single heart.” Like the Pledge of Allegiance—absolute blind loyalty to the nation-state. There must be loyalty to the moral authority, above all.
Finally, at the end, a return to democracy as religion.
God moves and chooses as He wills. We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul. When our
Founders declared a new order of the ages; when soldiers died in wave upon wave for a union based on liberty; when citizens marched in peaceful outrage under the banner “Freedom Now”—they were acting on an ancient hope that is meant to be fulfilled. History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction, set by liberty and the Author of Liberty.
God created liberty, the soul longs for it, history has a “visible direction”—God’s plan, set by liberty and by God, who created liberty.
The use by the radical right of the language of “freedom” and “liberty” is no accident. It has been carefully crafted over many years and at great expense of money and resources. Right-wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Cato Institute use freedom and liberty as common themes, as do the most influential fundamentalist organizations like James Dobson’s Focus on the Family and Jerry Falwell’s Liberty Alliance, Liberty Home Bible Institute, and Liberty University.
Freedom and liberty are progressive ideas that are precious to Americans. When the right wing uses them, it sounds as if aliens had inhabited, and were trying to take possession of, the soul of America. It is time for an exorcism.
Freedom and liberty are progressive ideas—our ideas. It is time for progressives to fully integrate them into our everyday thinking and into our language. Unless we keep pointing out over and over all the ways freedom and liberty are central to progressive thought, radical conservatives will wrest these most precious ideas from us and redefine them permanently. To take back freedom, we must remind ourselves regularly about the role of freedom in our lives.
Every progressive issue is ultimately about freedom, in the ways that we have discussed in
Chapters 3
and
8
. You give me a progressive issue, and I’ll tell you how it comes down to a matter of freedom. Here are a few examples:
Opportunity: The
freedom
to acquire the education, skills, and capital you need to realistically pursue fulfillment in life.
Economic opportunity: The
freedom
to earn a living by working for a living. This requires
freedom
from the cheap labor trap.
Health: Injury and illness impinge on
freedom
. Health keeps them from impinging on
freedom
.
Social Security: Helps to guarantee
freedom
from want in old age.
Unionization: The
freedom
of working people to organize so they can be
free
from want and fear through living wages, adequate benefits, and humane labor practices.
Education: Provides the
freedom
needed for fulfillment in life,
freedom
from the barriers created by an insufficiency of knowledge and skill.
Privacy: The
freedom
to pursue your personal life without disruption, interference, or the collection of personal knowledge about you by outsiders or by the state.