Milton Friedman and personal freedom

Andrew Sullivan cites an excellent letter from Milton Friedman to Bill Bennett in 1989, when Bennett was President George H.W. Bush's drug czar.

From that letter:

In Oliver Cromwell's eloquent words, "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken" about the course you and President Bush urge us to adopt to fight drugs. The path you propose of more police, more jails, use of the military in foreign countries, harsh penalties for drug users, and a whole panoply of repressive measures can only make a bad situation worse. The drug war cannot be won by those tactics without undermining the human liberty and individual freedom that you and I cherish.

You are not mistaken in believing that drugs are a scourge that is devastating our society. You are not mistaken in believing that drugs are tearing asunder our social fabric, ruining the lives of many young people, and imposing heavy costs on some of the most disadvantaged among us. You are not mistaken in believing that the majority of the public share your concerns. In short, you are not mistaken in the end you seek to achieve.

Your mistake is failing to recognize that the very measures you favor are a major source of the evils you deplore. Of course the problem is demand, but it is not only demand, it is demand that must operate through repressed and illegal channels. Illegality creates obscene profits that finance the murderous tactics of the drug lords; illegality leads to the corruption of law enforcement officials; illegality monopolizes the efforts of honest law forces so that they are starved for resources to fight the simpler crimes of robbery, theft and assault.

Drugs are a tragedy for addicts. But criminalizing their use converts that tragedy into a disaster for society, for users and non-users alike. Our experience with the prohibition of drugs is a replay of our experience with the prohibition of alcoholic beverages...

...This plea comes from the bottom of my heart. Every friend of freedom, and I know you are one, must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence. A country in which shooting down unidentified planes "on suspicion" can be seriously considered as a drug-war tactic is not the kind of United States that either you or I want to hand on to future generations.

Thank you, Milton, for your commitment to freedom.

Love,
Ben

Those who compel my will lose my heart

This period more than any other has convinced me that I can no longer identify exclusively or primarily with any ideology or party or group. Ideology and ideologues -- communism, socialism, Nazism, fascism as well as liberalism or conservativism and even anarchism or libertarianism; whatever ideology -- that compel conscience are as repugnant as religion that compels conscience.

There is a reason why there is such a absence of ideas in contemporary political and cultural discussions. Because force -- power -- has become an obsession in contemporary democratic politics. It's one of the most ironic and tragic features of early 21st century democratic politics, since the 20th century saw the thankful demise of the most serious threats to freedom and liberty and ideologies and governments premised on force as an organizing idea: communism, Nazism, fascism.

The idea that free and democratic peoples would spend a century opposing, rightly, ideologies premised around force only to turn to force, themselves, to try to govern themselves and to recommit the same mistake of governance that democratic peoples spent the previous century opposing is one of the terrible tragedies of the beginning of the 21st century.

It cannot possibly hold because force is what failed those regimes and what rationalized their abuses. Though, as we learned with communism, force can hold the human imagination for far longer than anyone who loves freedom could think bearable or imagineable.

The fact that Milton Friedman, who spent his life committed to cause of freedom, would die during a period of repression and regression, nevertheless a period of liberal repression, is a serious tragedy of this time.

What else would we refer to as a repressive period or a repressive regime but a time or a government that romanticizes the use of force or turns to force to solve its most pressing problems? There is no other meaningful definition of repression.

And the fact that Milton Friedman had to die during a time when liberals are romanticizing force to cure economic woes that he spent a lifetime arguing powerfully as a medicine worse than the sickness is tragic for Milton and tragic for all of us, really.

He thankfully saw the end of communism as a serious alternative to democracy as an organizing principle for governance. And there is little doubt that Democrats control power temporarily, thankfully, in a democracy, as do Republicans, thankfully. There is little doubt in my mind that force as an organizing principle of democratic governance cannot hold long because its failure and abuses during the 20th century were real and serious.

It's one of the most important bits of wisdom from a serious liberal thinker, Lord Acton, that we have from the 20th century:

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

How terrible that we would spend the early 21st century romanticizing the most terrible legacy of the 20th century.

Democratic peoples romanticizing force look like Russians romanticizing Stalin.

At least under Stalin we ate, reason too many Russians. Which, of course, was not true; some ate, some starved. At least when we were forced to be good, reason democratic peoples, we were not so bad. Which, of course, is not true. As with today, many were good; all were bad.

Repression, in both cases, undermined all aspects of life: moral, material, political, cultural, academic, personal.

Repression is the most seriously tragic legacy of humanity. And that it takes so much time to die in the early 21st century demonstrates just how foolish humanity's commitment to this failed principle remains. Foolishness and stubborness are often synonymous, in my experience. And this example is the most serious of that sad fact of life that our time has to offer.

Those who compel my will lose my heart.

And my heart, my conscience, is not open for compulsion.

My heart, my conscience, is now and forever committed to freedom.

Love,
Ben

Rest in peace, Milton Friedman

Milton Friedman, one of the more brilliant economists of the 20th century, has died at the age of 94.

Nobel-winning economist Milton Friedman has died: reports

A very sad day for those who love individual freedom and care about free markets. Friedman was perhaps the most important advocate for free markets and one of the most important advocates for individual freedom of the 20th century. Friedman's advocacy for personal freedom is probably more important than his monterarist economics philosophy, per se. But monertarism was a vehicle for Friedman to advocate for as little interference of the government in markets as possible. His work around education markets is some of the finest I've seen and a very persuasive case for the cause of freedom in promoting education.

What I loved about Friedman is that he was convinced, rightly, that his right of conscience on almost any issue that mattered was more important than the government's right to resolve that matter of conscience for him. He was right about that. And it is what most endeared me to this very smart and decent man.

Thank you for your contributions, Dr. Friedman.

Love,
Ben

Strong-arming and its consequences

You know what's really interesting?

My original reaction to being strong-armed by administrators when I was so completely in good faith on everything they've tried to strong-arm me around was to have my feelings hurt. I was in good faith, there was no reason to strong-arm me, and they strong-armed me anyway because of this foolish, popular notion that change can or must be forced (which it can't, of course; some people just have to learn that lesson the hard way, I'm learning).

But now, I'm getting over my hurt feelings. And at this point I'm just losing respect for people who continue to argue that line because they so often do so at the expense of other options, they've gotten so obsessed with it. My administrators do seem to be completely losing track of what strong teaching and leadership looks like in their obsession with looking tough. And folks like Carl Levin, arguing for the most mindless and arrogant option for handling the Iraq war being passed around these days -- to pressure the Iraqis to take care of the mess we created -- just looks like a fool to me, these days. I used to respect Carl more. Now I just think, "What would lead someone to so mindlessly pursue one option that has such a terrible track record and ignore all others?" The answer: because Democrats are convinced that this is what brought them to power. The truth is that Americans voted against Republicans, not for Democrats. And they can vote against Democrats, similarly, if and when Democrats fail to resolve the situation in Iraq because they decided to get stuck on an option that is not likely to yield results.

Some people are kind of hard-headed, I'm learning. But plenty of failure will either lead to them changing their mind, or people changing their leadership.

Either way, once this obsession fails and pitters out, we will have to move on.

Because we can't just keep failing forever.

Love,
Ben