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Liberty, the Moral Choice.
By Harry Felker
For the premise of my commentary, I must first
familiarize everyone that reads further with a quote
from Ayn Rand, I am of the knowledge that some people do
not like her, but this is the assumption on which the
foundation of my commentary sits, and I fully believe
this assumption to be true as it is not open to
contradiction.
"Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose
of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless
self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity,
since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to
the achievement of your values."
Ayn Rand
As happiness is the moral purpose of your life,
happiness is a prime value, not sacrifice, and not
mindlessness, this leads to the question of how one
stands the best chance to achieve happiness. For the
purpose of this proof we are going to examine liberty
and its opposite, slavery, logically if I am to prove
liberty is the moral choice I must examine slavery as a
moral choice and be able to denounce it as false.
Slavery offers no happiness, we do not achieve happiness
at the sacrificial alter of the looting and mooching
people demanding our best effort as their right offering
nothing in return. Liberty requires our best effort, our
best virtues, as liberty grants all the freedom of
existence, but the responsibility to not take the
existence from others.
Slavery as a moral choice was defended in the centuries
past as the burden of those that have beset on them by
their slaves, that the slave is merely a moocher that
offers poor and forcefully provoked labor in return for
the necessities of life. The slave sees that none of his
effort is his own and he is the property of the whip
holder, in current times slavery has changed in form but
never in function. This is an important truth folks,
slavery exists today as it had at this country’s
founding, instead of the slaves being brought in on
ships from Africa, they are born here, of all races and
genders. The only marked difference in this is the hand
holding the whip, for now it is the federal government,
and it has been since 1865, it started then as a small
snowflake sliding down the mountain, now we have a full
blown avalanche on our hands. The illusion of freedom
has been the subject matter of the public education
system for some time, the declining quality in
education, force-feeding the new American ideology on
the students. Children are being manipulated to accept
slavery, this is a key point to the amorality of
slavery; if it cannot come natural to a child there is
an issue with it, and our schools are demanding children
to not question authority, to obey unflinchingly, as one
would expect from a slave. One must then ask, is there
happiness in this tactic for training the children, does
the result produce happy individuals? If a teacher is
happy producing a mindless drone, than they are the most
evil creature ever to exist on Earth, the kind of sadist
that enjoys with glee the handle of the lash as they
strip away the minds of the future. There is no joy to
be had in slavery, in any form of justification it is a
burden, on both the slave and the master, each is forced
to produce for the benefit for another, and never truly
owns his own production. Slavery is therefore removed
from the moral choice and into the realm of the amoral,
as it achieves no happiness for any but the most
depraved sadists, and it as an institution, past and
present, has no value to humanity.
Liberty, in all beliefs that are true and just to
humans, is the ideal, some are flawed in their methods,
but they do all recognize the benefits of liberty. The
religious believe that man is gifted life from a
creator, and only reason dictates that if we are all
children of a true and just "God" then one must accept,
as we are his children, that this creator will want the
best for us. What better opportunity than in liberty is
presented to reach this goal, and in reaching the best
for us, would that also dictate that there is happiness
in the result? Atheists believe there is no such
creator, and that life is the result of random action,
does this deny that liberty is the best option? I would
think not, as one's happiness is one's own
responsibility, not having to answer to a "higher"
being, the atheist should look to all opportunity to
achieve happiness. Moral virtue is more than a religion
can own, it is a value, and all value has a way to be
exchanged, happiness as a moral value is exchanged only
by volition. Take the example of the business owner and
the employee, the business owner is made happy when his
business thrives, and in order for this he requires the
effort of men that are motivated to the task. The
employer will, in true appreciation of value, reward the
diligent and able worker, both are happy, the employer,
as his business will prosper through better quality
product from his employees, demanding a higher price for
his product, and the employees, as they are finely
rewarded in a just manner for their best efforts. This
is directly opposite of slavery, slavery requires that
someone must sacrifice value in order to provide for
others, only in liberty can this scenario be made
possible.
Logically, if happiness is a value to humanity, and to
achieve one's values is a moral virtue, than choosing
the best chance to achieve happiness must also be a
moral choice. There is little argument that the end of a
whip provides happiness, for either participant in the
act, the whipped is obviously not in agreement, and the
whipper is never pleased with the product. The only
conclusion is that liberty is the only moral choice,
further the only choice that will achieve any moral
value, as any choice that is not liberty must be bought
at the price of chains on someone, somewhere.
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