Liberty vs. Equality: Which is More Important?

We hear a lot about equality in the presidential campaign, and elsewhere. Equal pay. Equal income. Leveling of playing fields, and so forth.

We hear almost nothing about liberty. This raises the question: What’s the most important thing for our government to focus on? Liberty or equality?

The concern about equality arises from the idea that life should be “fair.” If things are not perceived as fair, in America of the early twenty-first century, then most people turn to government to “do something about it.”

But that’s not how America started.

America was started on the premise that government should “give me liberty, or give me death,” to quote Patrick Henry. As an interesting article entitled, “Are Americans Too Corrupt to Value Liberty?” recently pointed out, America’s founders did not say, “Give me equality, or give me death.” It did not seem to occur to them to use government to make people equal in income, property, personal attributes or anything else. They did not envision or propose designing one-size-fits-all nationalized school systems, medical care systems, or anything equivalent for their day.

Some people ignore or give up on politics, paying attention only at presidential election times, but even then with a sense of wary detachment. Others pay more attention. But either way, there appear to be millions of people clamoring not for more liberty, but for more equality.

Equality sounds nice. Who could disagree with equality for all, right? And equality under the law is very important. No double standards. However, equality of circumstances and conditions is not the same thing as liberty. In fact, the two are completely at odds with one another. The moment you put your desire for equality above my liberty, my liberty is compromised. And vice-versa. That’s the corrupt thing about today’s society, and yes, it’s even more corrupt than Hillary Clinton. She simply cashes in on it, because she wants lots of money and lots of power even more.

Here’s the issue. When you embrace liberty, people are free to be themselves, so long as they don’t physically harm, steal from or murder others. Liberty, consistently practiced, leads to unprecedented growth. Why? Because some people do more than others. Some do better than others. Some have better timing or fortune, but some with better timing and fortune do more with it, while others squander it. The point is: People are not the same. They cannot be and never will be.

Utopian visions (if you want to call them that) like Marxism and even Nazism all have one thing in common: To make people more the same. Whether it’s from a racist point-of-view or a class-struggle point-of-view, it’s always the same story: Let’s equalize people to make them happier.

America was always the land of liberty, for the most part. Yes, slavery was a glaring and horrible exception. But America was so pro-liberty in the 19th Century that these pro-liberty ideals made it the first society in human history actually to abolish and outlaw slavery. That’s a tribute to our system and its underlying idea that every individual is sovereign over his or her own life.

Since that time, and escalating in recent decades, America has shifted the focus of government from preserving and expanding liberty to establishing equality. As a result, we have all these one-size-fits-all systems in medicine, education and elsewhere that don’t really seem to make us better, richer or happier. And as a majority now see, we have a class of politicians in both parties dedicated to preserving their own interests above all else. Liberty is the last thing on their minds.

Liberty means freedom for everyone. Equal freedom for everyone matters. Equality under the law matters; but that’s it! This means government cannot take some of your money to pay for another, no matter how wealthy you are. Of course, you’ll most likely take that wealth, if you have it, and either spend it on goods/services or invest it in new enterprises. (It’s unlikely you’ll hide it under the bed, although that’s your right.) Either way, you’ll create jobs and wealth for others, without even thinking about it. And even if blindfolded you’ll do better with it than the government would, because we all know how honest and competent government officials have been at spending other people’s money. Not only have they spent it all, but they’ve run up $20 trillion in debt because there’s never enough of other people’s money to spend.

America lost its way. Not just during the Obama years, but for a long time before that. Polls consistently reflect the idea that most people believe America is off on the wrong track. What’s the right track? The answer is to restore the focus on liberty and get off this obsession with equality. This will mean dismantling many programs and changing many assumptions. Clearly, we’re not there yet. But sooner or later we’ll have to be. Because we can’t go on like this forever.

Follow Dr. Hurd on Facebook. Search under “Michael  Hurd” (Rehoboth Beach DE). Get up-to-the-minute postings, recommended articles and links, and engage in back-and-forth discussion with Dr. Hurd on topics of interest. Also follow Dr. Hurd on Twitter at @MichaelJHurd1

Check out Dr. Hurd’s latest Newsmax Insider column here!

Dr. Hurd’s writings read on the air by Rush Limbaugh! Read more HERE.