Thought of the Day 04.21.10

Freedom is one of the most misunderstood and abused concepts in America, which is ironic since you’d normally expect our most cherished principle to at least be one we understand properly.

See, freedom is usually thought of as being intrinsically valuable, which means that the purpose of having freedom is to have freedom. Unfortunately, this is not the case. In fact, the purpose of freedom is to preserve the meaningfulness of being good. Compulsory goodness is compulsion, not goodness. This means that every time we talk about freedom without also talking about the use which endows that freedom with its value, we’re just facilitating badness.

We should never talk about freedom of property without also talking about the moral mandate to be generous. We should never talk about freedom of religion without also encouraging the worship of God. And we should never talk about freedom of speech without also advocating civility and edifying use of that speech.
Simply put, freedom without the expectation of virtue is just permission to do evil.