FreeCon ... How Free Are We?

Get your scorecards out, my friends!

Let's start scoring bad political ideas and bad political actions.

With the self-righteous media in America finally surrendering to academic Marxism, and with Leftists forcefully lecturing their bankrupt moralities to the rest of us Americans, and with the Right electing a guy who says he wants to cripple free speech and free trade, I thought it might be time for a qualitative assessment of just how coercive certain political ideas and policies really are or could be -- on both the right and left.

Let's end the smugness and self-righteousness of the politicians and elitists by declaring in concrete terms, with a Number, just how dangerous they and their ideas are.

All political thought and action can be measured in the societal realm by the amount of coercion they use or seek to use against individuals and businesses. Are they freedom-oriented or are they not? Every government policy affects someone! A Leftist insisting on the forceful funding of the arts or a Rightist seeking to forcefully ban abortions both seek coercion against individuals.

There can be no self-righteousness on either's part for the above coercive policies -- for forcing some people to do what they don't wish to do with their own money, or for preventing others from doing what they wish to do with their own body.

But how bad are those particular policies? How coercive is each one on individual rights? How much do they violate freedoms?

Perhaps we can attempt to measure this. Perhaps we can measure the amount of coercion of these two proposals and all other political policies and political ideas on a Freedom Condition scale.

FreeCon

FreeCon would give qualitative measure, on a scale of 1 to 5, to the amount of coercion being used or sought to be used against individuals via political policies and ideas -- with FreeCon 1 being total control of an individual's (or business's) action in a certain scenario, and FreeCon 5 being total freedom of action in a certain scenario.

This would give at least a general sense of just how coercive and dangerous some ideas are, so that we can carry that sense with us in conversation, judgment and political action. For example:

"Obama's executive action on punishing energy businesses via stifling pollution controls is FreeCon 3. It still honors the businesses' rights to run their own businesses somewhat, but violates property rights to a large degree and limits maximum production and other alternatives that may be essential for growth and prosperity. And it raises the price of energy for consumers."

The discussion just on the energy scenario could last for days, of course, with hundreds of facts determining a proper FreeCon number, pertaining to the violation of the right to property.

Because of the variables involved, there will not always be agreement on the FreeCon scaling on any particular political policy or idea, but the discussion helps give clarity to the concrete facts surrounding the idea, and the eventual FreeCon scaling itself.

FreeCon can also be used to give a general assessment of a country or the world, much like DefCon does in its realm of imminent threat to the U.S.

For example, a FreeCon 4.5 might've been given to a nearly-regulation-free America (with almost no taxes) in the 1890s. But with the weight of Progressive intrusion over the last 120 years, we might now give a FreeCon 3 or FreeCon 2.5 assessment concerning loss of rights, loss of freedom.

An overall assessment would include such areas as free speech, gun ownership, unbridled capitalism, taxation, property ownership, stifling fees and permissions, immigration/emigration, etc.

We could even give FreeCons to Supreme Court decisions, to media outlets, to particular reporters, to entertainers (Dicaprio gets FreeCon 2), to businessmen (Soros gets same as Dicaprio), to family members (hmm), to other countries, to politicians, to movements, to religions, to activists, etc.

Objectivists understand that the right to one's life, body and property is absolute, based on the fact that we are rational, volitional animals who must have that right (the freedom) in society in order to act in accordance with our own minds and values to be happy and productive. Governments and their policies cannot rightfully interfere with our right.

Government's only job is to protect individual rights -- to protect freedom. Anything else is intrusive, taking it below FreeCon 5.

All assessment on FreeCon assumes this objective fact about reality, humans and freedom. It assumes that humans have a complete right to their life, body and property -- so any political idea or policy that would violate that right in any way would bring us below the ideal of FreeCon 5.

Let the assessments begin!

Where's the REAL Aaron Burr When You Need Him?

In case you've been on the non-planet Pluto for the last 18 hours, my friend, there's been yet another leftist protest.

This time the protestors were dressed up -- on Broadway. Yep. Yep. They consisted of boorish audience members who actually booed another audience member, who had his daughter and nephew with him to enjoy the wonderful play Hamilton.

No, it's true. It happened.

The audience member who was booed was then lectured to by the cast of the play after the play was over, as the audience member was trying to exit with his daughter and nephew.

If you've never heard of such a thing happening and find this altogether unsettling, please be patient. There's more. Yes, yes, I'll let you know who the audience member was in a moment. Yes, yes, his daughter and nephew are alright.

The Hamilton actor who did the lecturing -- let's call him Fake Aaron Burr -- insinuated that the audience member was a bigoted, narrow-minded, elitist, Earth-hating, rights-hating, racist pig who would hopefully be less of all those horrible things because he saw their great play.

Please stop laughing, it's true. I swear it. It's not a hoax. Yes, of course, only a leftist could call somebody despicable and then offer him hope of not being despicable because he was offered the opportunity to see the grand leftists perform. Yep, you just can't make that shit up.

I'll let you judge for yourself. Here's what Fake Aaron Burr said:

We, sir, we are the diverse America, who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights. ... But we truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us.

Whoa, my friend, I don't think I've heard you use those words in a while. Please calm down. OK, you can stop throwing things now. Yes, of course I agree. Yes, of course it's condescending and insulting and pretentious and, ahem, fucking presumptuous. Yes, I know, I know, you just don't DO something like that to a person, ANY person, out for a nice relaxing evening of art and entertainment -- with his daughter and nephew, no less.

But that's what leftists do, right? They block our highways and roads and force us to listen to their tantrums and waste our time in our cars -- away from our loved ones or our jobs or the emergency room or wherever.

They just can't leave us alone!

They riot over elections but can't tell us why they're rioting, and they demand to be heard, even though they don't know what they want to say. They've got emotions, you know!

They tell us that we must work so they can have free college.

They tell us they must have safe spaces if we say anything back.

They and their representatives turn hard-working Americans into slaves of the welfare state.

They define people by race and class and disabilities -- and then call us the bigots and racists.

They have no understanding of what inalienable rights are -- to one's own body, property, money and time. But they will lecture about those rights to the soon-to-be second-most-powerful person in the world.

Oh, yes yes, I'm sorry. The name of the audience member was Vice President-Elect Mike Pence. No, he didn't say anything when Fake Aaron Burr lectured him. He just left with his daughter and nephew.

Yeah, me too. It's too bad that Mike Pence wasn't the REAL Aaron Burr.

Now that would've been a show worth watching!