In recent times, the COVID-19 pandemic provided the most powerful impetus for the intensification and brazenness of the Left’s demonization of individual liberty to advance collectivism. Yet, while the pandemic waxes and wanes, the Left has no intention of lessening its assaults on our liberty.
The reason is simple: our God-given, constitutionally recognized individual liberty is both the bedrock of our free republic and our greatest protection against the Left’s collectivism.
Consequently, because it is an existential threat to their collectivist ideology and aims, the Left is engaged in a perpetual assault against our liberty. Their overarching goal is to coerce Americans into submitting to the fallacy that collectivism is altruism; and liberty is selfish, inequitable, dangerous, and, for some, racist.
One front in the Left’s assault on liberty is a malign neglect of the word, itself. When was the last time you heard a Leftist use the word “liberty” in a positive sense? When was the last time you heard a Leftist use the word “liberty” at all? (One can substitute the word “freedom,” and the results will differ little.)
A second front is the Left’s attempt to make “liberty” synonymous with “selfishness” and “inequity.” While railing against capitalism, what the Left is really targeting are free markets. Ironically, within free markets it is the collective wisdom of the individual that propels prosperity – not the state’s heavy, prehensile hand. But, because those individual decisions are freely made, the Left must revile those collective decisions as “inequitable.” Ergo, the Left’s accusation that America is “systemically racist” is both a societal and economic condemnation for our free republic and its free market. For the Left, any and all economic decisions – collective or otherwise – must be centrally planned by the state, i.e., the Left. This is why crony socialism suits the collectivist aims of the Left: the concentration and centralization are essential to a collectivist, state-run economy. (And, like Mao before them, our domestic Left will turn on their conniving corporate fellow travelers once they have outlived their useful idiocy.)
Another front is the Left’s systemic effort to make “liberty” synonymous with “dangerous.” One need only peruse a university “speech code”, a leftist cable news station, or the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) to see how liberty – notably in the instances of religion, speech, dissent, and the ability to follow and act in accordance with the dictates of one’s conscience – is “problematic” to a Left that seeks to eradicate it. Thus, words are violence, so free speech must be curtailed; the unvaccinated are murderers, so vaccines and vaccination “passports” must be mandated; parents (and white supremacists?) dissenting from critical race theory who air their concerns at school board meetings are slandered as domestic terrorists, so the DOJ must persecute them.
These Leftist assaults upon liberty are escalating. Fortunately, they are matched by the public’s increasing loathing of the Left. This, in turn, spurs the Left to further escalate their assaults upon liberty, as they believe their powers may soon be curtailed by the electorate and consumers. It results in a vicious, desperate cycle of Leftist authoritarianism.
Cynically seeing and seizing every possible pretext to attack liberty, pandemic or not the Left will continue to weaponize fear to leverage Americans into servility, including subjection to a “social credit system”, similar to one imposed by the genocidal communist China. Even the messaging is similar. The Beijing regime’s asserts how liberty is the enemy of prosperity and security. Our domestic Left asserts how liberty is the enemy of equity and safety. (Ironically, the communist Chinese message to its captive populace is actually less robust in its advocacy of socialism.)
Sadly, for America the Left’s decades long offensive against liberty has yielded results. For while one may focus on those states and those citizens who have dissented from their loss of liberty, too many have submitted to it or, worse, embraced it. And, as history shows: where one American’s rights are infringed, all Americans rights are endangered. Thus, the preservation of our liberty is the first duty of not only our servant government, it is also the duty of the citizenry, itself. Therefore, let us not be misled.
Despite their devious attempts to portray individual liberty as selfish, the Left’s collectivism is not to be conflated with the common good. The Left’s collectivism relies upon the coercive power of the state and the submission of a subservient populace. The true common good relies upon sovereign citizens’ free, individual consent in accordance with the dictates of their consciences without state coercion. After all, if an activity is truly for the common good, realizing it doesn’t require “experts” and punitive acts that turn dissenting sovereign citizens into second class citizens (or worse).
Equally, the Left must conflate collectivism with the “common good” because by its very definition and by historical precedent collectivism is antithetical to the common good. Because it is based upon twin pillars of state coercion by rewarding submissive subjects and punishing dissenters. This inherently divides the population and pits neighbor against neighbor by government design and diktat. Consequently, the Left’s weaponized, enforced collectivism harms the common good by silencing dissent; denying the freedom of conscience; and eviscerating the bonds of comity and unity amongst the citizenry.
To the Left, this matters not a whit. And, again, it will not end with the pandemic. As is their wont, in its wake the climate cult, the rabid elitists of the World Economic Forum, and the entire Left will solidify its autocratic gains; seize upon another crisis – real or manufactured; and continue their attacks on liberty. For, as history and today’s headlines record, the imperatives of the Left’s deluded ideology propel them past reason and, if unchecked, onward to yet another collectivist catastrophe.
The first step in preventing it? Ever remember and proudly proclaim: “Liberty is the foundation of our prosperity and security in our free and blessed republic!”
As he describes himself: The product of a misspent youth, the Hon. Thaddeus G. McCotter (M.C., Ret.) is a guitarist, author, occasional radio co-host, and recovering politician. He is a former U.S. Congressman from Michigan having represented that state’s 11th Congressional district from 2003-2012.
