Liberal Democrat

Liberal Democrat
Individual Freedom For Everyone

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Blue Dem Warriors: Liberals Want Everyone to Have The Same Freedoms and Opportunities

This piece was originally posted at The New Democrat: Blue Dem Warriors: Liberals Want Everyone to Have The Same Freedoms and Opportunities

This is exactly what liberalism is about and what Liberals actually believe. Quality opportunity for everyone that lead to individual freedom for everyone. A society where everyone has the individual freedom to manage their own lives. Not the freedom from personal responsibility to manage their own affairs. Not the freedom to not have to figure out your own health insurance, retirement plan, where to send your kids to school, how much you should work during the week, what you can eat and drink, say to other people, watch on TV, who to sleep with, what music to listen to, etc. This is the main difference from socialism or what so-called Progressives like to call progressivism and neoconservatism. The question comes down to who has the power. The government or the people.

You get to individual freedom through opportunity. You get to opportunity through education and economic development. Getting the skills that you need to get the good jobs and then selling yourself based on your skills to get that good job. That gives you freedom and ability to manage your own life yourself. Without government deciding for you how to get your health insurance, where to send your kids to school, how to plan your own retirement and how to spend your own money more broadly. And what you do with your own personal time. Individual freedom can only work through education and then later personal responsibility. So when people make good personal decisions they enjoy the benefits from that. When they make bad decisions they live with the consequences of that themselves.

You don’t need a big government big enough to manage everyone’s life for them if you have an educated society with the skills and freedom to make their own decisions. Government has a role to see that everyone has the opportunity to get the freedom that they need to live, in well freedom. But not hold people down, because they’ve decided that government should take care of those people instead. Or tax and regulate people to the extent that freedom is discouraged, because the people believe that government will take care of them. Or they won’t be able to enjoy their success once they get it. Government shouldn’t discourage people from being individually successful and put down individual wealth. But instead promote those things so we have more wealthy and successful free people. Which is better for everyone involved including government.