Brain Fertilizer

Thesis paragraph:
Liberty means choices. One choice is who to vote for...but hardly the most important. The one absolutely necessary component of liberty is a consistent legal framework that allows people to make decisions with a high degree of confidence about future repercussions.

People must be able to know that if they do Action A, Consequence B will or will not result in nearly every case.

People in the US choose to break the speed limit all the time because they make a value judgment based the fact that 99.9% of the time there is no penalty, and even when there is, it isn't that bad.

People in the US choose to express their political opinions because the worst penalty that can ever be assessed for merely expressing an opinion is having someone disagree with them, perhaps vehemently. Sure, someone beating them up is a possibility, but that also breaks rules regarding assault that the speaker can then use to exact retribution.

The point is, there is a system. It usually works, and is often consistent in how it is applied the results thereof.

This all comes from the Rule of Law. We have a Constitution. Great. So does China. We have elections. Great. So does Cuba.

What sets the US apart from those countries (and even other free nations) is that our Constitution establishes the Rule of Law, and we tend to vote in patterns that keep people in office who support the Rule of Law. One of the biggest problems with the Kennedy political machine is that they avoid the consequences normally resulting from certain actions...largely by charisma, but also by status. The scandals of the Kennedy clan undermined the Rule of Law in ways that the Nixon scandals never could, because Nixon paid a price. I tried to reach Mary Jo Kopechne to see what she thought about this idea...

So here's the thing. Alot of people are pinning their hopes on the Iraqi elections. I am, too, to an extent...

The people pinning their hopes on the election seem to think that a successful exercise of democracy will establish liberty there. It can't. My hopes are only that the election gives enough credibility to the existence of the new, sovereign Iraq that it removes the insurgents' will to continue fighting.

Because it still depends on the nature of the govt elected, and what they do with the power. If they establish Sharia or even a Sharia-like legal system, the nation is doomed. Rule by Imam (what the religious leader decides is justice) may work for small communities, but cannot work to give liberty to a modern nation. It is Rule by Man, and thus subject to whims, bad days, inconsistencies, etc.

In fact, turning it around to the United States, the worst assault on liberty and freedom is not fascist, Right-wing neo-Nazis led by John Ashcroft and George W. Bush. Rather, activist judges (the vast majority of which are liberal) erode liberty by using their own conscience as a more important guide than the written law for rulings. Supreme Court Justice Bader-Ginsburg wanting to interpret the US Constitution according to European legal customs undermines the Rule of Law. Considering the US Constitution to be a "living" document in which different meanings can be intepreted in different social times weakens the consistency of Law.

At the very least, to have liberty, people must be able to make decisions with a high degree of confidence that the consequences of taking that action will not change according to the whim of a handful of people sitting in judicial chambers attempting to impose social philosphy (be it liberal or conservative). 2+2 must always equal 4, and not accept a different answer if you are a minority, or need to redress past wrongs due to centuries of male oppression of women, or because society has suddenly decided that it might be okay to make it equal to 5.

The assault on liberty does not come from people attempting to re-establish standards that people can depend on (even if they disagree). No, the assault on liberty comes directly and largely from the liberal socio-political thought process.

Heck, that's not a new thought. I hope I've made you consider it in a new light, however.

Update:
Um, so maybe I could have left it at merely saying the election alone would not establish liberty in Iraq.

But I like to follow ideas to see where they lead. It may have weakened my point somewhat. If so, I'm sorry. But I see no real reason to truncate what has already been written. Maybe I'll refine them into separate essays later, but I tend to procrastinate on stuff like that.