“The average man doesn't want to be free. He simply wants to be safe.”
—H. L. Mencken
I thought, maybe, after getting to know Alabama politics for a while, that I might find a way to temper my libertarian sensibilities. If only I gave the political scene enough time and all due respect, I thought, then maybe I would learn to find a way to love the politics of my native soil.
I was wrong. Completely, spectacularly wrong.
If anything, the longer I entertain Alabama politics, the more inflamed and incorrigible my libertarian streak becomes. I even find myself wanting to use the “a-word.”
Now, don’t get me wrong. There are many talented, earnest, intelligent, diligent, charming and downright wonderful people in Alabama politics — many good men and women across the spectrum — yet the more I watch these children of God play their political games this side of Eden, the more I find their government an absurd mockery of the concepts of liberty, self-reliance, and self-government.
Does the Alabama Legislature occasionally get things right?
Yes, of course, though what they do finally get right is too often a remedy to what they first got wrong – like a man who breaks legs for a living finally going into the crutch business – but very rarely do these remedies result from a genuine or principled desire for liberty.
Liberty carries little currency in the Alabama Legislature. Why? Because liberty carries little sway with almost all systems of government ever devised by man.
The coin of the realm in politics — from Montgomery to Washington to Timbuktu — is ultimately the desire for safety.
Governments aren’t created to make men free, but to make men feel safe, even from themselves, at the expense of their own freedom.
This desire for safety manifests in many forms, some more obvious and commonsensical than others. Crime, for instance, will always be an obvious issue because most people would like to be safe from murder, assault, rape, robbery, fraud, etc. Even libertarians desire the basic safety of law and order, as libertarians see the only proper function of the law is to protect persons and property against force and fraud.
From this basic starting point, the competing desires for safety and liberty agree, but they soon diverge. Soon, the desire for safety begins to regard liberty as a danger to be suppressed, shackled and overcome.
One can imagine an endless list of concerns from which to make people feel safe, but men especially wish to be made safe from the unregulated liberty of other men. Thus, protecting the “general welfare” of society can mean almost anything under the sun, requiring laws that necessarily violate individual rights for the sake of collective safety.
That’s when the desire for safety runs amok — when the people’s liberties are traded like special favors in law rather than protected by law as birth rights.
That’s when the government starts picking winners and losers in almost every aspect of life, creating powerful incumbent interests that are inevitably treated more equally than others.
Liberty is then reduced to the counterfeit freedom of the ballot box, as the average man is told he is free, not because he is free from government molestation of his person and property, but because he has a vote to choose between this or that politician to run said government to keep safe his presumed noble interests from the presumed wicked interests of other men.
Such a vote for safety from other men’s whims can, of course, mean a vote for almost anything in practice – for health, for religion, for education, for efficiency, for jobs, for the children – but all come back to the desire to feel safe.
As for the politicians who run for office and win, they also aren’t immune to this overriding desire for safety, as safety can simply mean defending one’s reputation and status. Given that officeholders are theoretically beholden to the voters (but more practically are beholden to their donors who provide the funds to propagandize and manipulate the voters), most political officeholders are as nervous as a strumpet at a Sunday morning church service.
This desire for safety compels most officeholders to “go along to get along” out of fear of being left out in the cold by their colleagues, donors, and, ultimately, the voters.
Obedience, not freedom, is the legislator’s virtue. Those who wish to command must first learn to obey.
For those officeholders who command leadership positions, the desire for safety manifests itself in a sort of management of competing favors and interests that errs on the side of caution rather than visionary risk-taking. Most political leaders would rather take the slow-and-steady safe way while selling it as courageous and bold to the voters than take any risk, only to fail and look bad.
Though it may seem abstract, the desire for safety explains much of the Alabama Legislature's behavior in this session, as well as in past and future sessions.
Do they get some things right? Yes. Fear and the desire for safety are powerful motivators to do some good things, though sadly, it can also lead to some wretched things done at other people’s involuntary expense.
Indeed, the longer I’ve tried to give Alabama politics a chance, the more it reminds my libertarian sensibilities that most of what passes for courageous self-government is actually the clamoring of fearful men swift to make a safe space from the supposed dangers of liberty.
My vote is to abolish the Alabama Legislature. Of course, I know that won’t happen, so at least I can look forward to this latest legislative session finally ending.
Joey Clark is a native Alabamian and is currently the host of the radio program News and Views on News Talk 93.1 FM WACV out of Montgomery, AL, M-F 12 p.m. - 3 p.m. His column appears every Tuesday in 1819 News. To contact Joey for media or speaking appearances, as well as any feedback, please email [email protected]. Follow him on X @TheJoeyClark or watch the radio show livestream.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
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