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Socialists Fear All Liberties
Well, what liberty should the
legislators permit people to have? Liberty of conscience? (But if
this were permitted, we would see the people taking this
opportunity to become atheists.) Then liberty of education? (But
parents would pay professors to teach their children immorality
and falsehoods; besides, according to Mr. Thiers, if education
were left to national liberty, it would cease to be national, and
we would be teaching our children the ideas of the Turks or
Hindus; whereas, thanks to this legal despotism over education,
our children now have the good fortune to be taught the noble
ideas of the Romans.) Then liberty of labor? (But that would mean
competition which, in turn, leaves production unconsumed, ruins
businessmen, and exterminates the people.)
Perhaps liberty of trade? (But
everyone knows—and the advocates of protective tariffs have
proved over and over again—that freedom of trade ruins every
person who engages in it, and that it is necessary to suppress
freedom of trade in order to prosper.)
Possibly then, liberty of
association? (But, according to socialist doctrine, true liberty
and voluntary association are in contradiction to each other, and
the purpose of the socialists is to suppress liberty of
association precisely in order to force people to associate
together in true liberty.)
Clearly then, the conscience of the
social democrats cannot permit persons to have any liberty
because they believe that the nature of mankind tends always
toward every kind of degradation and disaster. Thus, of course,
the legislators must make plans for the people in order to save
them from themselves.
This line of reasoning brings us to
a challenging question: If people are as incapable, as immoral,
and as ignorant as the politicians indicate, then why is the
right of these same people to vote defended with such passionate
insistence?
Clark Simmons, Webmaster
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