“Managed Freedom” Is Not Freedom

One point everybody should remember is this: Communists don’t truly want to make things better for all — their goal is simply to make things worse for those whom they believe are the problem, and they are willing to make everything worse for everybody to achieve that goal.

I’ve been doing some guesting on podcasts for the past few weeks, and in one appearance yesterday I was asked why there is still tension between the US and the UK and EU. My thought is that it’s rooted, at least in part, in the fact that we have completely different definitions of freedom. European and British freedom has traditionally taken the form of what I’d call “managed freedom,” something defined two decades ago by an old nemesis of mine from the days I first began exposing my thoughts to the public. He said:

“… people, and I do include me, want a big brotherly government to take care of mundane matters, such as our health care, our retirement, overseeing the quality of goods and services, so we can concentrate our collective minds on American Idol and the exploding Kardashian population.”

These are people who have no issue paying seventy or eighty percent of their income to the government for the privilege of not worrying about “mundane” things.

The American definition has traditionally been more of a “f*ck off and leave me to my own devices” proposal, because we understand that in life, “mundane” rarely occurs. We’re wary enough to know that when you lose sight of the mundane, it opens up a vast playground for people who want to “manage” your affairs, allegedly to perfect you, but usually just for their own benefit.

This brings me to the psychology of the Democrats and their id, the DSA.

Watching the DSA’s approach, I’ve seen a debate rage between those who think we’re being seduced into totalitarianism by the bread and circuses of Huxley’s Brave New World, and those who think it’s coming through the pain and suppression of Orwell’s 1984.

To quote the great 21st-century progressive philosopher H.R. Clinton: “What difference, at this point, does it make?” My argument is that the common denominator between Huxley and Orwell is that both are forks converging on a single path — big-government authoritarian control. “Managed” freedom becomes no freedom at all.

Ayn Rand agreed, writing:

“It is too obvious, too easily demonstrable that fascism and communism are not two opposites, but two rival gangs fighting over the same territory—that both are variants of statism, based on the collectivist principle that man is the rightless slave of the state—that both are socialistic, in theory, in practice, and in the explicit statements of their leaders—that under both systems, the poor are enslaved and the rich are expropriated in favor of a ruling clique—that fascism is not the product of the political “right,” but of the “left”—that the basic issue is not “rich versus poor,” but man versus the state, or: individual rights versus totalitarian government—which means: capitalism versus socialism.”

The early stage of tyranny at a national level is the trivialization of reality, as Huxley foretold. That trivialization is plainly underway: the airwaves are choked with time-sucking programming, from the Kardashians to Ice Road Truckers to the National Cornhole Championship on ESPN. Poll after poll has proven the vapidity and ignorance of a significant number of Americans and journalist John Ziegler famously interviewed several Obama voters after the 2008 election only to find that most were ignorant of basic facts, like which party controlled Congress. That hasn’t improved in the two decades since; if anything, it’s gotten worse. More people can identify Katy Perry than can name a single Supreme Court Justice.

“Brave New World-ism” infects the populace with a level of apathy so deep that most people don’t care that we had a mentally incompetent liar as president, or that Democrats routinely misrepresent reality to hide their agenda.

Central control and regulation, “1984”-style, is made possible by the mindless satiation of “Brave New World-ism.” Combine the two and it becomes clear that Huxley’s vision is the catalyst for the endgame. “1984” can’t be implemented without militaristic action or war — but in a brave new world, we can be eased into it without a shot being fired.

People have been drawn into a “reality” that is bland, inconsequential, and safe — one that appeals to the voyeuristic human desire to watch others and judge ourselves better or smarter for it. Because the most ridiculous and embarrassing moments of the watched are broadcast to the public, it also discourages anyone from doing anything that might stand out, for fear of how it will be captured and perceived.

Compared to the unserious, voyeuristic thrill of scripted reality TV, reading and learning about the Constitution seems boring and passé — I mean, that dusty old thing is like a couple of hundred years old, man. Anything that can’t be tweeted is apparently too old-school to be believed.

Brave New World and 1984 are two different poisons that arrive at the same predictable end: the death of liberty and individual freedom.