Some personal reflections on freedom in 2018

In 1852, Frederick Douglass famously railed against America’s hypocrisy in his speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” Now, as then, Americans live in a country that recognizes liberty for some, while its government works to destroy the lives and strip the liberties of others at home and abroad. The founding ideals that we celebrate every July 4th ring hollow to those who have had their families torn apart by deportation, incarceration, or the “collateral damage” of military strikes. These contradictions should be the bane of American libertarians who strive to make their country greater than it is or has ever been.

Particularly since the middle of the last century, many of the ideals that have animated the intellectual wing of the American political right have had roots in libertarian thought. Some of these ideals have been laudable in principle and practice, such as the monumental global progress in health improvements and poverty reduction made in an era of free trade. Other principles, like the decentralization of power by means of federalism or “states’ rights,” have often been wielded as mechanisms of oppression and state-sanctioned bigotry. It is clear that some conservative and libertarian adherents have not supported federalism in spite of such abuses of state power, but because of them. In other words, the freedom to be racist is of greater personal value than the economic and personal liberty of others. This may not be representative of most libertarians, but the number is high enough that self-described libertarians who do not feel that way ought to be concerned about it.

Beyond the outliers, however, many other American libertarians put their lot in with one major political party, which — as both major parties do — follows the guidance of its respective dominant personalities and captured interests rather than any guiding principle or ideology. The work-from-within strategy is fine, insofar as trying to make a potential governing party marginally more libertarian may be viewed as a worthy goal. However, when erstwhile evangelists of individual liberty begin to cheerlead for an administration that has gone out of its way to subvert the rights and dignity of large swaths of people, the cheerleaders are regurgitating America’s longstanding liberty of hypocrisy. And this time, as with many times throughout American history, the people who have become political and legal targets of this administration are overwhelmingly people of color.

A friend of mine recently went to Texas to bring relief to migrant families that have been ripped apart by cruel and unnecessary policy decisions or have otherwise been in American detention. She shared horrific stories of people released from custody carrying emaciated children who have lice, a persistent cough, and a number of other maladies that went untreated while under the supervision of the United States government. Such conditions should be unthinkable for accused criminals or terrorism suspects, let alone families with children seeking refuge and asylum in our country. It is inhumane and all Americans, irrespective of party or ideology, should be outraged that this abuse is being meted out in our name.

In times like these, then, it is particularly galling to see defenders of the Trump administration use the terms “liberty” and “freedom” to talk about its accomplishments. It’s utterly baffling to see calls for more nationalism while this administration is using American identity as a rhetorical placeholder for white identity. It is nauseating to listen to the praise of tax cuts as if they make up for the invasion of courthouses in search of undocumented immigrants among those seeking justice. And it is abhorrent to hear self-described libertarians at happy hours gleefully talk about working with this administration to destroy institutions to stick it to progressives. As much as the Republican party has used libertarian ideas as window dressing for their big government plans, there are far too many “libertarians” who are just Republicans whose animating principle is hating the left in a slightly different way.

Thankfully, this has not been the case for my employer. My colleagues have been highly critical of this administration, in large part because there is hardly anything putatively libertarian about it. Indeed, some critics have complained that we’re too hard on President Trump. A few weeks back, I overheard one of my colleagues say, “We’re not [just] anti-Trump. We’re anti-president, aren’t we?”

Yet, as I’ve explained many times, libertarianism largely remains a white male enterprise. As a result, the understandings of what liberty means are often couched in terms of government size and tax burdens. I recently attended an international libertarian gathering that proclaimed that public television was one of the greatest threats to liberty in that country. Regardless of whether or not state-funded news is good public policy — or good TV, for that matter — if that’s your greatest threat to liberty, your life is pretty good indeed.

But here in the United States, where the president gets applause from police for condoning brutality against presumptively innocent people; where the FBI is coding and jailing civil rights protesters as “Black Identity Extremists”; and families seeking asylum are being torn apart, with their children locked in cages without proper medical care; liberty is something far more sacred than a budget item, and its violation is far more profane.

For people of color in this country, liberty is under direct threat from this administration. The racism that drives this administration and its policies have real-world impacts on men, women, and children of color, regardless of their legal status. Blithe dismissals of the impacts of our current political situation like “we’ll get through this” are almost entirely dependent on who precisely “we” encompasses. Indeed, that “we” looks an awful lot like Trump’s vision of America.