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Freedom and Equality — Choose One |
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Freedom and equality are incompatible… Procrustes, the great equalizer… 🧨 Are you aware of the looming Jan. 28th Ultimatum? Well, that's the one date you MUST have circled on your calendar. Why is Jan. 28 so important to you? Get the crucial details here.
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Dear Reader, |
Wall Street was dark today. |
The stock market was shuttered to commemorate Martin Luther King's birthday… a federal holiday. |
And so today we will reflect upon the twin virtues with which he is associated. |
We are told Dr. King, or Rev. King — the secular among us prefer "Dr." while the religious prefer "Rev." — got his holiday because he was out for freedom and equality. |
Freedom and equality, of course, form the central pillars of the American project. |
Freedom and equality, says the civic books, are behind every armed conflict the United States has waged since the Revolution. |
Yet set aside the civics books. Ignore windy abstraction. Turn away from myth — however comforting and reassuring. |
Sit down instead before fact. |
Oil and Water |
An honest evaluation of fact reveals that freedom and equality are not brothers. They are not relatives. |
They are, in reality, warring rivals. |
You may have freedom. Or you may have equality. |
Yet you cannot have both — not at once. |
Liberty admits of inequality. Liberty is at ease with inequality. |
Equality — by definition —is not. |
Try to mix oil and water into one lovely substance. |
You cannot do it. Nor can you mix freedom and equality into one lovely substance. |
Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn struck bullseye when he wrote: |
If [human beings] are free, they are not equal. And if they are equal, they are not free. |
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Equality Doesn't Exist Among Equals |
Is an Einstein the equal of a dunce? Is a Washington the equal of a Biden — or a Trump? Is a Babe Ruth the equal of a minor leaguer? |
"Of course not," yells the equalitarian. "We mean equality before the law, not equality of ability. You're erecting a straw man." |
Just so. Yet scratch from him his surface paint. |
Nine times of 10 you will discover a fellow who is not satisfied with equality under law. |
The more sagacious, the more ambitious, the more active, will range out ahead of the less sagacious, the less ambitious, the less active. |
And the equalitarian will agitate against it. His love of freedom will yield, almost invariably, to his love of equality. |
As I have argued before… |
Superior Men |
Beneath his exterior the equalitarian is uncomfortable with the natural human hierarchy. It disturbs him. |
There are the Alexanders of this world. There are the Caesars of this world. There are the Bonapartes of this world. |
These are men stamped from a nobler metal than most. |
The democrat resents and fears men of such high natural distinction… for they are indisputable reminders of human inequality. |
Thus — as I have argued before — the equalitarian zealot is the heir to old Procrustes of Greek mythology. |
The Great Equalizer |
In Greek mythology this Procrustes fellow resided along a route between two settlements. In his residence he harbored an iron bed. |
He offered weary passersby the overnight use of this bed. |
Yet this fellow had a highly peculiar fascination. He insisted that each visitor conform to the precise vertical dimensions of this bed. |
If the visitor was too short? |
Then Procrustes would stretch the poor man's legs — with implements of torture — until the man's feet and the bed's feet were in a state of perfect alignment. |
If the bed was six feet in length and the man stood 5'6" in height, for example… when Procrustes was finished with him he measured six feet. |
And if the visitor was too tall for the bed? If the man stood, say, 6'6" in height? |
The job was somewhat easier. Procrustes would merely saw away the excess height, at a location beneath the knees… until he too measured six feet. |
If the visitor stood a perfect six feet, he was in clover. Procrustes spared him the equalization process… and his dimensions went unaltered. |
Thus all visitors were equalized. Thus Procrustes was the ideal equalitarian. |
Democracy Has Always Been Considered a Form of Communism |
I do not argue that the believer in racial equality before the law is a modern Procrustes. I do not argue that Martin Luther King was a modern Procrustes. |
And I do not argue in favor of racial discrimination. |
I merely argue that freedom and equality are not the equals we are told they are. |
The packaging is false. |
Yet we are told freedom and equality represent twin pillars of American democracy. |
Even many "conservatives" associate the terms with democracy, which they evidently cherish. |
Yet as the individualist Hans-Hermann Hoppe has observed: |
Democracy has nothing to do with freedom. Democracy is a soft variant of communism, and rarely in the history of ideas has it been taken for anything else. |
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Kind heaven, is it true? It is true, yes. |
Throughout history democracy has been largely considered a soft variant of communism. |
And the American Founders denounced democracy in terms often thunderous. |
Freedom or equality. |
You may choose one or you may choose the other. |
You cannot choose both. |
Brian Maher |
for Freedom Financial News |
P.S. A forgotten piece of financial legislation is about to be reactivated on January 28th. It will make some rich and others poor. |
What happens in this closed-door meeting will not be reported on the news… until it's too late. |
But a small group of Americans could potentially reap a fortune by acting before the critical January 28th deadline. |
Sorry for the ambiguity, but you need to go here to learn all the details. I don't even know if you'll qualify or not. |
But if you do qualify, be sure to get the facts here. |
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