Politicians regularly argue for new “gun control” laws, even while ignoring the execution and enforcement of laws already on the books.
Exhibit A, as I wrote at Townhall.com yesterday, is the failure of the military to provide the FBI with the information that would have blocked the Sutherland Springs church shooter from getting his guns.
Meanwhile, in the Washington Post’s Outlook section, Elizabeth Bruenig takes a more … philosophical perspective. She contends that “Western thought moved from seeing freedom as a means to an end — what philosophers call ‘the good’ — to seeing freedom as an end in itself. Thanks to our liberal heritage, we regard freedom as an intrinsic good, perhaps the highest one of all. The more of it we can get, the better off we are. Right?”
Right!
But Bruenig’s answer isn’t in the affirmative.
Instead, she points to Vatican elections during the Middle Ages in which “canon law enshrined the right of eligible individuals to cast their votes. But their choices … could simply be overturned [by church officials]. Freedom mattered, in other words, but was always subordinate to the highest good, which could sometimes place limits on liberty.”
Ah, the Post advises us to embrace the Middle Ages … just so our freedom doesn’t get out-of-hand.
Bruenig also thinks that “we largely lack the framework to ask what gun ownership is for.…”
Huh? The Second Amendment answers that gun ownership is “necessary to the security of a free state.”
In terms of both scholarship and insight, the Founders’ constitutionalism far outshines the Post’s shiny new neo-medievalism.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
5 replies on “The Good vs. Freedom?”
I very much enjoyed the following Paul. Thanks:
“In terms of both scholarship and insight, the Founders’ constitutionalism far outshines the Post’s shiny new neo-medievalism.”
I very much enjoyed the following Paul.
“In terms of both scholarship and insight, the Founders’ constitutionalism far outshines the Post’s shiny new neo-medievalism.”
Thanks!
An individual’s freedom, that is liberty, ends where it impinges on the freedom and liberty of any other individual without their assent.
Those who argue for restrictions on an individual’s right to protect their life, liberty, family and property clearly are seeking to to impose limitations on them, normally to vest the usurped power in themselves. Beware of them, for it is their control over all which is actually being sought, and from that point on there are only grants and indulgences from the leadership with no rights of the citizens remaining over the new soveriegn.
History least until it is rewritten, disclosures the number one way over last 100 years to die violently and prematurely is by the actions of one’s own leaders, who never give up their weapons and apparently know how to use them.
Another lesson which must be learned is that the government cannot actually protect your and yours, and that leaves that function, first and foremost, to yourself.
Well said!
Freedom isn’t an end in itself. It is a basic necessity if you want to live life to its fullest.
Elizabeth Bruenig invalidates her own argument. Her words are an indictment of the Vatican, not a justification of its actions.
Those (like WAPO) who presume to be our betters need to look themselves in the mirror. They endanger their own freedom by trying to limit ours.